Immigrants subhumans: Greek MP

ATHENS - Agence France-Presse

Immigrants protest poor conditions at a detention center in Komotini. AP photo

Proceedings in the Greek parliament were disrupted on Oct. 18 after a far-right deputy and member of a Council of Europe anti-discrimination committee described immigrants as subhumans, the Greek news agency Ana reported.

When Eleni Zaroulia of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party refused to withdraw the remark the speaker called a meeting of senior parliamentarians who formally condemned what she had said.

Zaroulia, one of 18 Golden Dawn deputies elected in elections last June which saw the party receive seven percent of the vote, provoked the incident when she attacked immigrants’ rights and demanded special treatment for people of Greek origin returning from places such as Albania and Russia. “It is unacceptable that they be assimilated to this kind of subhumans who have invaded our fatherland with the diseases that they lug around,” she said, according to Ana, loudly supported by members of her party.

Official position against discrimination

The speaker, opposition deputy Iannis Dragasakis, called on the conservative Interior Minister Evripides Stylianidis to intervene but he refused to call Zaroulia to order. He referred to the official “known positions” against discrimination. Zarpoulia was appointed earlier this month to the committee on equality and non-discrimination of the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly, to the dismay of anti-racist activists and Jewish bodies.