Greek Neo-Nazi party protests Turkish MPs

ATHENS

Three Turkish lawmakers take their oath on the Quran in the Greek Parliament.

Lawmakers from Greece’s far-right Golden Dawn party remained seated yesterday when the country’s three Turkish deputies took their oath on the Quran in Parliament. 

 Three-hundred deputies were sworn in during a religious ceremony led by Archbishop Ieronymos, the head of Greece’s Orthodox Church, including 18 members of the extremist far-right Golden Dawn party, a group that rejects the neo-Nazi label but whose members have frequently been accused of violent attacks against immigrants. 

When Syriza lawmakers Hüseyin Zeybek, Ayhan Karayusuf and PASOK lawmaker Ahmet Hacıosman took their oath on the Quran, Golden Dawn lawmakers remained seated to protest them.

Greeks clash with police as Bahçeli visits Thessaloniki

In a separate incident, a group of Greek Cypriots and members of the Golden Dawn party clashed with police in Thessaloniki after trying to enter the Turkish general consulate yesterday to protest a visit by Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the Turkish opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), who is visiting Greece as part of his tour of Balkan countries. 

Bahçeli was paying a visit to the house where modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, was born while the city was under Ottoman rule in 1881, when a group of around 60 Greek Cypriot students gathered in front of the Turkish general consulate to protest his visit. A scuffle broke out between the group and Greek police officers protecting the consulate after the students tried to pass the police barricade. Around 40 members of Golden Dawn joined the melee, which ended after the police dispersed the group with tear gas. 

Bahçeli left Thessaloniki in the afternoon for Macedonia.