The Greek Jewish community has called for the prohibition of a pan-European neo-Nazi meeting that is to be held in September.

The Jewish community in Greece has asked the country’s authorities to prohibit a gathering of European neo-Nazis scheduled for next September.

“We condemn the holding of this meeting and we ask the government to intervene in order to stop it from taking place in Greece,” said a statement issued by the Central Council of Jews in Greece (KIS).

KIS sent letters to the Interior and Justice Ministries.

“There has been no response from the government so far to our request,” says Moses Constantinis, the president of KIS.

Asked by a journalist about the issue during his daily briefing on 3 June, the Greek government’s spokesman Theodoros Roussopoulos said that he reserved his answer.

The gathering of extreme-rightists, including the German National Democratic Party (NPD), has been announced on internet by a neo-Nazi website. It is scheduled from 16-18 September in the village of Meligala, in Southern Greece.

Xenophobia

Called “Eurofest”, the gathering’s slogan is “Our Europe, not theirs. Turkey out of Europe”.

The meeting is jointly organised by the NPD, whose leader Udo Voigt is expected to attend, Forza Nuova from Italy, the Spanish Phalange and a Greek neo-Nazi group called Chryssi Avghi led by Nikos Mihalmoliakos.

Constantinis told EJP that he did not know why the right-wingers has chosen Greece.

Another neo-Nazi meeting was held in the northern city of Thessaloniki in 1998. At the time, the press reported on this meeting after the event had come to an end, leading to fierce protest from the Jewish community.

Speaking on Monday at the European Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg, Panagiotis Beglitis, a Greek deputy from the Socialist PASOK party, asked the Greek government “to ban the anti-democratic gathering”, while demanding the European assembly’s support on this issue.

Last January, Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the French extreme-right “Front National” party, pleaded against Turkey joining the European Union during a visit to Athens organised by an extreme-right Greek party.