The Racist\nViolence Recording Network is following with great interest the Golden Dawn\ntrial, to which it has been summoned to testify on behalf of the legal team of\nthe \u201cEgyptian fishermen case\u201d – one of 154 incidents that the Network recorded\nin 2012. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since its\nestablishment in 2011, the Racist Violence Recording Network has repeatedly\nsounded the alarm over the dramatic increase in the number of racist attacks\nand how they were carried out. According to the victims’ testimonies, the most\ncommon practice, especially between 2009 and 2013, was for “patrolling”\nof organized black-clad pedestrians or motorcyclists as self-appointed hit squads\nattacking refugees and migrants on the streets, squares, or at public transport\nstops. In several cases of particularly brutal attacks, the victims identified\namong the perpetrators, people associated with Golden Dawn, who were bearing\nits distinctive insignia. Only a few of these incidents were officially\nreported to the police. The victims testified to the inability or reluctance of\nthe prosecuting authorities to conduct adequate investigations and arrests,\nwhile most of the victims who did not have legal documents, did not report to\nthe authorities for fear of arrest and deportation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Being a credible\nand consistent interlocutor of the State for recording and addressing racist crime,\nthe Racist Violence Recording Network recalls the main finding made also during\nthe criminal proceedings: not all\nrecorded racist violence is related to Golden Dawn, but the activities of the\nhit squads during the critical period of 2009-2013 presented common\ncharacteristics, confirmed also in court rulings – indiscriminate racist violence,\nperpetrators outnumbering the victims, spread of organized violence and fear amongst\nthe public and domination of such groups in the neighbourhoods. In the\ninternational literature, these characteristics are linked to the activities of\nneo-Nazi and extremist groups, in which the Golden Dawn <\/strong>\u201cclaimed<\/strong>\u201d a prominent position. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the last\nquarter of 2013, following the arrest of the Golden Dawn leaders and high-ranking\nmembers, the Network saw a drop in the recordings of organized violence incidents. The significant reduction in the incidents of\norganized racist attacks compared to the past, apart from its positive aspect,\ncomes in support of the Network’s evidence about the existence of hit squads\nwith specific practices, against which, unfortunately, the Greek State was slow\nto take measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is also\nrecalled that the ruling in the Sakir v.\nGreece<\/em> case affirmed retrospectively and conclusively the specific modus operandi<\/em> and the lack of\ninstitutional action, already recorded by the Network during the period in\nquestion: the European Court of Human Rights had ruled against Greece,\nconfirming a clear increase in racist violence incidents in the centre of\nAthens since 2009, a pattern of attacks on foreigners by extremist groups, often\nlinked to the Golden Dawn, and ultimately a failure by the prosecuting\nauthorities to fulfil their positive investigative obligations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We recall that\nthe Racist Violence Recording Network was established at the initiative of the\nNational Commission for Human Rights and the United Nations High Commissioner\nfor Refugees in Greece, in the absence of a formal and effective system for\nrecording racist violence, which had been on the rise since 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These incidents are\nrecorded by member organizations of the Network, following the victims\u2019 in\nperson testimony and with a very specific and rigorous methodology. Reports by European\nand international organizations as well as the adoption of some of the\nNetwork\u2019s key recommendations by the State, demonstrate the credibility of its\nrecordings and findings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Network emphasizes that the well-established lack of legal protection and adequate access to justice for victims in the period in question renders an even greater need for the Rule of Law to be upheld by all competent authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n See the press release here<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Racist Violence Recording Network is following with great interest the Golden Dawn trial, to which it has been summoned to testify on behalf of the legal team of the \u201cEgyptian fishermen case\u201d – one of 154 incidents that the Network recorded in 2012. Since its establishment in 2011, the Racist Violence Recording Network has … Read more<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}