The logic of extremes was adopted by the judge and prosecutor during the trial that took place Friday, November 10^th, 2017, in the 2nd Single-Member First Instance Court of Thessaloniki concerning the murderous attack using clubs and daggers by members of Golden Dawn on November 7^th, 2012, on KNE members handing out leaflets outside of the Vocational High School of Lagada during a 48-hour strike, to students and to workers who ran to aid them during the attack. The court sentenced the two Golden Dawn members to 21 months of suspended imprisonment, but it also sentenced the 3 victims of the assault to 12 months of suspended imprisonment because they defended themselves and tried to disarm their attackers.

“Shock and gigantic question marks have resulted from today’s decision by the Single-Member First Instance Courtof Thessaloniki relative to the attack of the Nazi criminal Golden Dawn outside of the Vocational High School of Lagada, November 2012, where two of its members, armed with metal bars, clubs and daggers, had attacked students and members of KNE, injuring one high school student and one university student, who were calling workers and students to the 48-hour strike in accordance with the decision that had been taken for participation by the 15-member student council of the school.

The court handed down a 21-month prison sentence for the Golden Dawn members (who did not even appear in court, as neither did witnesses in their defense), but also a 12-month prison sentence for one of the injured students and two other worker trade unionists of The All Workers’ Militant Front (PAME), who rushed from a nearby factory to aid the students during the attack. The court ruled that there had been a confrontation between the two groups, rather than a murderous assault and equated the perpetrators with the workers, who had come to defend the underage students against their attackers.

This disgraceful decision, just a few days after the brutal assault of Golden Dawn members onone of the lawyers from the group of lawyers involved in the lawsuit against the criminal Nazi organization, and another woman outside the Athens Court of Appeals, intends to send a message to the workers and the popular movement, not to safeguard its struggles, to submit to violence and bullying, not to answer back to attacks, not to denounce, not to expose the Nazi Golden Dawn for what it is.

Workers should draw their own conclusions. With greater impetus and militancy they will organize their struggles against the anti-labor and anti-people policies of the government and capital. They will decisively expose and isolate the criminal Nazi Golden Dawn and its murderous practices. “

Photo: Mobilization to condemn the court decision

17.11.2017