Racist rally outside aid group’s clinic fuels tension
The main leftist opposition party SYRIZA on Friday launched a scathing attack against the ultra-right Golden Dawn following reports that around 60 of the party’s supporters staged an anti-immigrant rally outside the offices of the aid group Doctors of the World in the rundown district of Perama, near the port of Piraeus, on Thursday.
“Even during war, even at times when hatred and violence surpass all limits, hospitals and nursing staff were spared,” SYRIZA said in a statement. “Basic human logic dictates showing respect to those attempting to ease human pain but it is precisely this humanitarian logic that the Nazi Golden Dawn lacks,” the statement added.
Staff of Doctors of the World reported that between 60 and 70 people had gathered outside the group’s polyclinic in Perama on Thursday, shouting “Foreigners out of Greece” and other racist slogans. The clinic, which often treats more Greeks than immigrants, had been full of patients at the time, staff said.
In a statement, Golden Dawn refuted the reports, saying members of the party had not staged a protest in Perama, and accused SYRIZA of “lies and slander,” referring to the leftists as “the orphans of Ceausescu and Stalin.”
