Women Legal Experts Broke 'Golden Dawn,' Violent Greek Fascists, Most Nazis Tried Since Nuremberg
'The women who brought down Greece's Golden Dawn.' Female legal experts played key role in confronting far-right party’s violent tactics. The Guardian, Oct. 22, 2020.
Behind the bench, before her mostly male audience, as the marathon trial of Golden Dawn entered its last act, supreme court justice Maria Lepenioti did what she has done every week: she kept the peace. It has not been easy. Emotions have often run high. Even as the curtain was about to come down on proceedings with a ruling on whether those convicted should be jailed pending appeal, the Greek judge, both laconic and low-key, has had to pull off an extraordinary balancing act presiding over a case that has put more Nazi leaders and sympathisers in the dock than at any time since Nuremberg.
- Maria Lepenioti, L, presiding judge, looks on during the Golden Dawn trial, in Athens, Monday, Oct. 19, 2020.
In her court every word has counted. There has been no tolerance for the extreme rhetoric that fuelled the neo-fascist group’s spectacular rise. Nor for jibes from the other side. “Day after day, session after session, she has managed to keep the harmony,” says Giota Tessi, a reporter with the centre left Syntaktwn paper who has observed the proceedings almost since they began in April 2015. “Her knowledge of the case file is incredible. She has been a model of restraint but she has also been very aware of the weight of the moment.”
Historians will look back at the women who played a seminal role in Golden Dawn’s downfall. Under Lepenioti’s seemingly expressionless gaze, the three-member tribunal has gone where many in Greece had formerly feared to tread. After its landmark verdict that the far-right, ultra-nationalist party was a criminal organisation bent on extinguishing enemies real or perceived, sentences have been delivered that will almost certainly ensure its leadership remain behind bars for years to come. The party’s founder, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, and the tattooed macho militants who comprised his inner circle, all received 13-year prison terms.
With the last chapter in the story of Europe’s most violent political force finally written, it will not be lost on the protagonists that punishment, in the end, was meted out by a woman. -- “It’s undeniable that in this case justice was female,” said Maria Stratigaki, professor of gender studies at Panteion University, noting the number of female prosecutors and investigators who also participated in drawing up the dossier against Golden Dawn. “For a party whose ideology is based on male supremacy, whose worldview is so militaristic, it’s humiliating and will hurt.”-- Stratigaki is among the many who believe there are lessons to be learned.
The dark episode of Golden Dawn – its meteoric rise from being a fringe movement 40 years ago to Greece’s third-biggest party on the back of protest votes over EU-dictated austerity – has raised disquieting questions...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/22/the-women-who-brought-down-greeces-golden-dawn
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- Golden Dawn members hold flags with the meander symbol at a rally in Athens, 2015.
Wiki. Golden Dawn is a far-right political party in Greece which is commonly described as neo-Nazi and fascist. Though the group rejects these labels, its members have expressed admiration for the former Greek dictators Ioannis Metaxas of the 4th of August Regime (1936–1941) & Georgios Papadopoulos of the Regime of the Colonels (1967–1974). They also use symbolism very like that of the Nazis, & have praised figures of Nazi Germany.
According to academic sources, the group is racist and xenophobic, & the party's leader has openly identified it as nationalist & racist. In October 2020 it Athens Appeals Court ruled that it had been operating as a criminal organisation, which had systematically attacked migrants & leftists. Seven of its leaders and 61 members were found guilty on various charges, including murder, relating to this finding...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dawn_(Greece)
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