Greece: The number of racist attacks on rise!

According to reports of the official authorities, an increase has been noted in the number of racist attacks in Greece. AFP released that last year the authorities had recorded 154 racist attacks, 104 of which had been perpetuated in Athens. In at least eight cases, the victims or witnesses indicated that that the assailants were persons in connection with neo-Nazi political party, Golden Dawn.
The report on racially motivated violence in Greece demonstrates that throughout 2012 only 24 vic-tims of the racist attacks have ever filed an official complaint via reporting the incident to police. Doctor Nikitas Kanakis, secretary-general of the Greek branch of the NGO Doctors of the World informed that the assailants were not trying to kill anyone yet; they were causing visible injuries in order to disseminate fear in those communities. Jorgos Tsabropulos, the head of the Athens office of the UNHCR said that racist assaults took place practically every day at various places around the country, but primarily in Athens.
At the national elections in 2012, the Golden Dawn Party has for the first time assumed share with 18 seats in the Greek Parliament. Since then the immigrants and other vulnerable groups in the country have been subject to increasing number of racist assaults. Recently, 14-year-old Afghani boy whose face was sliced up by violent offenders using a broken bottle has been a harrowing example regarding these incidents. And lastly, a refugee names Omar Diallo has been attacked and terribly beaten by four people in Athens.
Despite condemnations, the reaction of the government on the issue of increasing number of racist assaults is full of contradictions. While condemning Golden Dawn's assaults as unacceptable by tell-ing that Golden Dawn was unequivocally a neo-Nazi party and releasing a special police unit had been created to fight racist crime, Public Order Minister Dendias pleaded that adopting new regula-tions would not help. Further to his statement, Dendias put forth an influx of undocumented refugees into Greece was an enormous burden on Greek society and the rise in Golden Dawn's in-fluence on society was a result of this.