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Yorgos Karahalis / Reuters
Members of Greece's far right Golden Dawn party hand out boxes of milk to residents suffering from the economic crisis at the Syntagma square in Athens on Aug. 1, 2012.
Members of Greece's extreme right Golden Dawn party handed out food parcels outside Parliament on Wednesday, but made sure only Greek citizens received the assistance.
Hundreds stood in line at Athens' main Syntagma Square, showing identification proving their Greek citizenship to pick up their food. Party volunteers dressed in black passed out milk, pasta, potatoes and olive oil in a one-day charity event that critics said was meant to soften the image of a party likened to neo-Nazi groups.
Greece is going through its fifth year of recession, with poverty and the unemployment rate rising, and Golden Dawn has made inroads in the country's political system with its vehement attacks against traditionally dominant parties and strongly anti-immigrant stance.
TV show attack shows 'real face' of far-right in Greece?
Its members have been accused of involvement in attacks against immigrants, and some of its senior officials have publicly declared admiration for Adolf Hitler. The party rejects the neo-Nazi label.
Public support, however, has increased 20-fold since elections in 2009, and Golden Dawn won 18 seats in the country's 300-seat parliament in June elections.
Surprise success dims for Greek far-right party
"Golden Dawn is a nationalist party and above all we are looking after Greeks," Golden Dawn Parliament member Nikolaos Michos told The Associated Press.
Panayotis Panagiotopoulos, an unemployed man waiting for food Wednesday, said he was grateful for the help and described Golden Dawn as representing "the soul of the Greek people."
Greek politician who attacked rivals on TV sues victims for defamation
The party denies any involvement in a recent surge of street attacks against Asian immigrants in Athens and other cities, despite repeated claims to the contrary by migrant groups and human rights activists.
"At night they beat people up. And by day, they hand out food," Petros Constantinou, a left-wing Athens city councilman, told the AP.
"They are exploiting people's misery to fish for votes. They are despicable."
Ilias Kasidiaris, one of Golden Dawn's MPs, told Reuters TV that the party had bought the food "exclusively from Greek producers to give to Greek people," the BBC reported.
Christos Pappas, a fellow MP, added: "We are in Greece, so Greeks have priority."
"The illegal immigrants that have come here, who enjoy, if you will, all the rights and privileges that come from Greek taxpayers are illegal, invaders. They are a threat to Greece," Pappas said, according to the BBC.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
Democracy at its finest!
As the way it should be, taking care of their own first. I see nothing wrong with the practice. Illegal immigrants need to go back & live off their own government or change it.
Nay, we live in America when legall born citizen are denied help while watching the illegal be served quickly & without even proving there were ever here legally.
My neighbor was told unless she was of Latino decent is would be useless & waste of time to fill out the paper work.
Has nothing to do with Democracy.
Seems like the birthplace of Western thought still has some good ideas.
DKJ...I think that might have been sarcasm. There is no democracy; there is only plutocracy where parties anoint centrists that support aristocratic interests. Democracy is a failure.
Not democracy, socialism for the elite.
At least they can tell which one's are citizens. We should try that at elections. Just skip voter registration all together. Its so 20th century.
why are there so many immigrants? what has the world done to the people's homeland that they all want to go to greece?
Check out a map of the countries surrounding Greece ( past the waters). When Europe was booming 15 years ago Greece was very attractive for these countries, because even though Greece sucks right now, those countries suck even more.
It used to be the gateway to the west. Once you enter a EU country and travel to another EU country you do not have to go thur customs and get a passport stamped...that why
Excellent news; Greece for Greeks.
National problems do not engender will to help foreigners, aliens and immigrants (legal or illegal).
The US needs to learn something, and stop screwing tax payers for billions of dollars supporting illegal criminals.
This is just sad.
The world is just so sad.
That is quite a contrast to the far left in California who give preference to foreigners over that of their fellow citizens.
Primary consideration is especially afforded to those who are illegally in the state. Everyone else is a second class annoyance.
Has an oddly familiar ring to it, doesn't it?
This is exactly how it should be, when will the United States lean this. They keep handing out food to everyone expect U.S. Citizens. Thank you Greece for doing what is right. If you are hungry and not a Citizen of the Country you are in..GO HOME AND EAT THERE, you should not be in that Country if you did not bring enough money to be there and support yourself anyway...or could it be that you were going to let your host Country pay your way.
Illegals are breaking the economy in the countries they are flocking to..They are doing this in order to take over,they need to be kicked out..The bleeding heart liberals need to go with them..We are all going to be sorry,I am already!!
Hooray for the Greeks. Giving food only to citizens makes sense. In Texas you get public assistance evne if you are in teh country illegally. It costs Texas legal tax paying residents billions of dollars every year. That is not only dumb, but wrong.
When a country is doing well, it should take care of everyone it can. But when its finances are stretched to the limit (as in the US) or to beyond the limit (as in Greece), there is nothing wrong with restricting the use of resources.
Due to its geographical location, Greece has a huge problem with illegal immigrants, as does Italy and Spain. It is perfectly legit for the government or a political party in ANY country to limit the recipients any sort of social help. I lived in both Canada and Australia (legally) and we had to prove that we were legal temporary residents for our kids to get into the public schools there. We need to do the same.
Greeks are paying the price for lavishing living and it has caught up with them in spades! Now they want to boot out all of the foreigners who came to take part in the extragavant living/benefits - USA hows about we boot all the greeks from our country as well .....(not to sound but im sure ill get blamed for being a racist) but i dont care, but the WORLD is about to see what is called a deep recession and its going to be very bad before it gets better!
Greece has always been on the front line of the unrelenting expansion of the Muslim world...Ionia and Northern Cyprus are but the latest examples of Greek lands ethnically cleansed by Turkey...the West..(America & the UK) whine about Kosovo,Darfur and Sudan...but not a word about Europeans evicted from North Africa and Anatolia after centuries!!! Golden Dawn is an expression of Europe's wake up call...the trouble with "multi-culturalism" is that its a one way street...after fouling their own homelands...these Third World peoples want to colonize the First World too!!!
NO FREE TRADE WITHOUT FULL EMPLOYMENT!!!