The connection between the attacks on immigrants and the social/economic situation in Greece:

• The first wave of attacks against immigrants was a counter-insurgency response to the December ’08 riots in the spring of ’09 (in fact, before the NoBorder camp on Lesvos). Then there was talk of FRONTEX, of building the wall in Evros and new detention centres across the land.
• There was a small interval during the first months of the PASOK government (with the voting of the „citizenship bill“, and Vougias‘ decision to shut down Pagani). The 300 immigrant workers‘ 44-day hunger strike in January 2011 pushed back the tide for a while.
• The recession continued. Ever since the introduction of the IMF structural adjustments (i.e. the politics of destruction), the scapegoating of immigrants has been elevated to a central governing technique of the State.
• In March 2012, while a non-elected coalition government was in power (comprising of the collapsing PASOK, right and far-right wing ministers, as well as a banker prime minister), two of its most prominent (PASOK) ministers, that of Health and that of Public Order, set the tone for a full-scale onslaught against immigrants, legitimizing and encouraging a populist-fascist movement …

The problem is not only that 7% of the (valid) votes in May and June 2012 went to the neo-nazi party, but that the official rhetoric of the government and the mass media is openly fascist …

and also, that half of the police vote for the neo-nazi party …. (so one does not have to wonder whether the immigrants are being treated badly by the police here – or whether fascists ever get arrested by the police, since they are largely the same people …)

There is no doubt that the rise of fascist populism and immigrant scapegoating is directly connected to the IMF structural adjustment plans

(clandestina)