BE AFRAID. BE VERY AFRAID

Greeks fight to stop ultra-right festival Helena Smith in Athens Monday July 4, 2005 The Guardian Ultra-right parties from across Europe have caused uproar in Greece after announcing plans to stage a festival in a Peloponnesian town in the autumn. The three-day event, organised by some of the continent's leading neo-Nazi groups and billed officially as a camping trip to "Hellas, land of the heroes", is intended to become a recruiting ground for young people. "This unique gathering will combine comradeship with sport activities by the sea and, most importantly, an open congress with speeches on the descent of our national identity," the extremists say on their website. Article continues "Turkey, out of Europe" is expected to be the main slogan of the September 16-18 meeting. Germany's National Democratic party (NDP), Italy's Forza Nuova, Spain's La Falange, Romania's Noua Dreapta (the New Right) and Greece's Chryssi Avgi (Golden Dawn) have all pooled resources for the youth gathering. Old-guard fascists, including Udo Voigt, who heads the NDP, and Roberto Fiore of Forza Nuova plan to address the crowd. Outraged local authorities and leftwing groups in Greece yesterday pledged to fight back. In Meligala, the site of the proposed gathering, the town council vowed "to do everything possible" to stop the extremists descending on the hamlet, 150 miles south-west of Athens. "If indeed, it does take place here, the council will decide what to do to prevent it," the mayor, Eleni Aliferi, said. "We don't want them here." Opposition has also come from Greece's tiny Jewish community, one of the most badly hit in Europe by the Holocaust. Fewer than 8,000 of an estimated 80,000 Greek Jews survived the Nazi death camps after German forces marched into Greece in 1942. "We want the government to ban the gathering," said Moses Constantinides, president of the community. "We believe its reaction should be strong. The neo-Nazi meeting should not be allowed to take place." Anti-racist groups will this week meet political parties to discuss how best to confront the ultra-rightwingers. But there are fears that by banning the event outright, the neo-Nazis could be turned into martyrs. "Like all EU member states, constitutionally we cannot stop a gathering taking place if it is peaceful and unarmed," Lefteris Economou, the public order ministry spokesman, said. But human rights activists believe the "menace" can be stopped. "It's very provocative what they are doing," said Takis Yiannopoulos of Youth Against Racism in Greece. "The Peloponnese is steeped in the history and blood of the Greek civil war [between communists and nationalists in the 1940s], so it's no coincidence that they've chosen to hold the meeting there. We are absolutely determined to stop them."