Greek Community of Melbourne Objects to Visit by Golden Dawn MPs

The planned visit to Australia by members of Greece’s ultra nationalist  Golden Dawn party raised strong reaction among the Greek Community of Melbourne.

The Community released a statement, showing that Golden Dawn is not welcomed in Australia.

“The politics and actions of this organization, whose leadership and top officials are being held in pretrial custody for criminal actions in Greece, do not have support and appeal among Melbourne’s expats,” said the statement.

“The Greek Community of Melbourne is steadily opposed to discrimination based on race or religion,” continued the statement.

“Greeks in Australia oppose Golden Dawn,” Bill Papastergiadis, the president of the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria, told. “The visit by an anti-immigrant party is incompatible with the pluralist and multicultural society in which we live.”

More than 300,000 people of Greek descent live in Melbourne.

Golden Dawn MPs Eleftherios Synadinos and Georgios Epitideios, both former army officers, are going to speak in Melbourne and Sydney in October 2014.

The party’s representative in Australia, Ignatius Gavrilidis, said that the two MPs would be visiting Australia in order to raise awareness on Golden Dawn among Greek-Australians and also raise funds. 

Gavrilidis noted that there are almost 70 Golden Dawn “activists” in Australia and, based on social media data, the party has thousands of supporters in the country. He also noted that Golden Dawn is very popular among the young Greek-Australians.

A Greek-Australian organiser with the Melbourne Anti-Fascist Initiative, Alex Kakafikas, said opponents of Golden Dawn were meeting to discuss their response to the MEPs’ visit, including a blockade of any events they held.
“The ultimate goal is to stop them from having their meeting,” he said.
Kakafikas said Golden Dawn maintained a “shadowy” presence in Melbourne and had only a few supporters.