Greece

Subterms

    Latest story

    175 Shares144 Views

    AfD hails US ban on European leftwing groups as historians fear crackdown on anti-fascists

    by

    Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland party has welcomed the US government’s decision to classify a prominent German anti-fascist group and three other European networks as terrorist organisations, calling on Berlin and other European governments to follow the example.But historians of anti-fascism warned that at a time when far-right groups were making electoral gains across the continent, the move set a dangerous precedent that could prepare the ground for a broader crackdown on leftwing activism.The US state department announced on Thursday that the ban would apply to Germany’s Antifa Ost, an anti-fascist group whose members have been prosecuted by German authorities for attacks on far-right figures; Italy’s International Revolutionary Front, which sent explosive packages to the then president of the European Commission in 2003; and two organisations accused of planting bombs in Greece: Armed Proletarian Justice and Revolutionary Class Self-Defense.The AfD has long called for German authorities to make a similar ruling against anti-fascist groups, even before it became the largest opposition in the German parliament earlier this year.“Antifa is a terrorist organisation, and it would be easy for the German state to take action against it, only those in power don’t want to,” said Stephan Brandner, the deputy federal spokesperson for the AfD, accusing the German state of tolerating far-left violence.The designation could result in the freezing of any assets belonging to the groups held in the US and a ban on their members entering the country.Mark Bray, a Rutgers University professor who teaches a course on the history of anti-fascism, said that of the four proscribed groups, only Antifa Ost was an explicitly anti-fascist organisation.“The others are revolutionary groups,” he said. “This shows how the Trump administration is trying to lump all revolutionary and radical groups together under the label ‘antifa’. By establishing the (alleged) existence of foreign antifa groups, the Trump administration seems to be setting the stage for declaring American antifa groups (and all that they deem to be ‘antifa’) to be affiliated with these supposed foreign terrorist groups.”View image in fullscreenThe antifa movement emerged in Germany in the 1920s. But the term is extremely loose and is frequently applied to a variety of leftwing activist groups, whose common denominator is their opposition to fascism.Members of Antifa Ost are accused of attacking a neo-Nazi in Dresden as well as other acts of violence against people perceived as belonging to the far-right scene, including in Hungary, between 2018 and 2023.Six alleged members were charged in Germany in July, and its most prominent member, Maja T, who is non-binary, is being held in custody in Hungary in conditions they have described as inhumane. They face trial in January and have been told they could face up to 23 years in prison.Germany’s BfV domestic intelligence service, which has designated the AfD as a “confirmed rightwing extremist” force, has previously concluded that the antifa “movement” has neither a fixed organisational structure nor any clearly defined hierarchies.The historian Richard Rohrmoser said the name was such a broadbrush term it could be applied not just to “black-clad groups ready for violence” but also to peaceful activist groups from the Anne Frank Center to the White Rose student movement, the Christian-inspired student group that opposed the Nazis in the 1930s.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Trump is pursuing a perfidious tactic,” he told Der Spiegel. “By labelling groups as ‘antifa’, he can ban leftwing groups and demonstrations and crack down on opposition figures as soon as someone is seen wearing an antifa sweatshirt or carrying an antifa flag.” By doing so, he said, he can legitimise any action he takes against “anyone who is, in a broader sense, to his left, or opposed to him”.Italy’s Fai/Fri, or Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front, is a collection of anarchist-insurrectionist cells considered to be the most structured and well established of the European groups designated by the Trump administration. The group, which unlike other Italian anarchist movements expresses itself through violence, was founded in December 2003, when it distributed leaflets claiming responsibility for the explosion of two bins close to the home in Bologna of Romano Prodi, who at the time was president of the European Commission. A few weeks later, a parcel bomb exploded in Prodi’s hands. He was uninjured.Italy’s security services describe Fai/Fri as a “horizontal” movement made up of autonomous cells united by an insurrectionist-anarchist ideology and which uses armed direct action. Other actions include letter bomb attacks in 2010 on the Swiss and Chilean embassies in Rome and the 2021 kneecapping of Roberto Adinolfi, then the chief executive of the nuclear engineering company Ansaldo Nucleare.Mary Bossis, an emiritus professor of international security at the University of Piraeus in Athens, said violence was common on the edges of broad-based social movements. “But that does not mean, as in the case of antifa, that the whole movement is either violent or supportive of terrorism. In fact it is very much not the case … Standing against fascism does not make someone a terrorist.”Greek media reports described the US move as “a dangerous development” at a time when the threat from the right on both sides of the Atlantic was so visibly on the ascendant.After the dismantlement of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, which rose to be Greece’s third biggest party during its near decade-long debt crisis, ultra-nationalist, far-right parties have emerged and been voted into parliament. More

    More stories

    • 225 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      They fled war and sexual violence and found a safe space in Athens. Then the aid cuts hit

      by

      The night of 29 May was sombre at 15 Mitsaki Street, a women’s shelter in the centre of Athens. Shoes, winter coats, shampoo bottles and sheets lay strewn around: belongings the 30 refugee women and five children living there had worked hard to acquire, and would now have to abandon. The next day, the shelter would be shuttered for good.“I was so stressed I couldn’t sleep,” says Oksana Kutko, a Ukrainian. “I knew I had nowhere to go.”Operated by the Greek aid organisation METAdrasi since 2020, the shelter’s closure came as a shock.Kutko, 51, had been living there for three years after fleeing Russian bombs in Kharkiv. She hauled what she could carry to a nearby church.Residents could not find alternative accommodation in the short time they were given to leave. A Congolese woman with a seven-year-old son simply laid out a sheet on the pavement outside.By evening, everyone had vacated the refuge, except for one woman.Évodie*, a woman in her 20s who fled severe sexual abuse and violence in the Republic of the Congo, refused to leave. For days after the other women had gone, Évodie clung to the place: the last semblance of stability in her life of uncertainty.Already in a fragile mental and emotional state, losing her place at the shelter cast her back into memories of horrific abuse. Eventually, the police evicted Évodie. She spent the next month homeless.The shelter’s closure is the new reality brought by governments’ overseas aid funding cuts, people with fragile lives being left without lifelines, struggling to stay afloat.“These women’s need for a safe place, their need for hope for the future, their need to heal the past – all these things are connected,” says Thaleia Portokaloglou, a psychologist who knows Évodie from the Melissa Network, an organisation for refugee women in Athens.As support is withdrawn, Portokaloglou is seeing women unravel. How do you ask a person pulled apart like that to keep functioning, she asks.The closure of the Mitsaki Street shelter can be traced back to 20 January 2025, when President Donald Trump, froze the US foreign aid budget hours after his inauguration. Contracts with humanitarian organisations were terminated and over the following months support networks in many countries, including Greece, were gutted; METAdrasi lost a third of its budget, resulting in the shelter’s closure.Greece has received nearly 1.3 million refugees and migrants since 2014. The wait to be granted asylum can take years, leaving many people dependent on humanitarian organisations while their cases are being processed.View image in fullscreenEuropean governments have also been steadily slashing their overseas aid budgets, diverging sharply from the postwar global consensus on humanitarian relief.Lefteris Papagiannakis, director of the Greek Council for Refugees, says: “We are losing the whole of the international protection system that has been in place for the last 80 years in six months.”Meanwhile, Athens has hardened its stance on migration – parliament suspended asylum applications from north Africa in July and instigated laws this month that could mean rejected asylum seekers receiving prison terms if they do not leave within 14 days.Around the world, humanitarian networks have been thrown into chaos. Dimitra Kalogeropoulou, director of the International Rescue Committee in Greece, says: “We are facing an unseen crisis where people are really suffering.”On 30 June, between walls hung with Afghan tapestries, officials from Greece’s migrant-support organisations held an emergency meeting at the Melissa Network.The NGO leaders were visibly shaken. Minutes earlier, they had left an interagency meeting of the Greek branch of the refugee agency, the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR).“All of us are facing an existential crisis,” says Nadina Christopoulou, director and co-founder of the Melissa Network.Before January, 90% of the UNHCR’s funding in Greece came from the US state department, says Papagiannakis. Now, half the funding and half the staff are gone. “Unfortunately, Europe is not stepping in,” he says. “They say, ‘Ah, that’s a good opportunity! We’ll stop too.’”The cuts mean aid organisations have been forced to make hard decisions. Funding for victims of sexual violence has been cut across the board.Christopoulou put it in simple terms: 970 asylum seekers would be stranded without assistance. At least 100 survivors of sexual violence would lose essential services, including emergency housing.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreen“People will no longer come to our centre because they feel it is undignified to come without having taken a shower, without having slept on a bed – and perhaps having been raped overnight,” Christopoulou says. “Because that’s what happens when you sleep in a park.”After her eviction from the METAdrasi shelter, Évodie slept rough in parks and squares for a month. Christopoulou knows from Évodie’s case worker, Irida, that homelessness plunged her into a devastating mental spiral. She has since found a space in a new refuge, but remains uncertain how long she will be able to stay there.When Évodie first came to Melissa in 2023, traumatised by her experiences in the Congo, she did not speak and, unable to find housing, spent nights in a park where she was further harassed. Eventually, Melissa secured a hostel place for her, before she moved into the METAdrasi refuge.Initially, she sat in a corner, without saying a word. It was a surprise, then, when she decided to join Melissa’s choir.On 8 March last year, Évodie stepped on stage and started to sing. Those in the audience who knew her were stunned. “I was crying,” Christiana Kyrkou, a project manager at the Melissa Network, says.“It was one of the first times I heard, loudly and clearly, her voice,” Christopoulou recalls. “Everybody was happy, but Évodie was Oscar happy!”View image in fullscreenWeekly self-defence training sessions offered a space for Évodie to open up. The class instructor, Konstantinos Koufaliotis, says she was his most frequent participant.One day, after Évodie mastered the basics, Koufaliotis taught her how to throw him to the ground. He landed on the foam mats with such a bang that Christopoulou rushed to the room asking if everything was OK.“Évodie laughed and laughed, because she created this,” Koufaliotis says. “She owned that moment.”Over the summer, she opened up to Koufaliotis about her difficulty in trusting those around her. When the conversations were too much for her, Koufaliotis would put up his boxing mitts and they would go back to training.Victims of sexual violence have every reason not to trust people. “Even if you do manage to get out of the circumstances that have created trauma, it’s such a fragile edifice,” Christopoulou says. “What you’re building is so fragile that it may easily fall apart into pieces again.”Now, as funding dries up, and services from therapy to housing face being wrenched away in an instant, hard-earned trust that NGOs have taken years to build up vanishes with it.The shelter’s closure left Évodie once again sees everything as a threat and everyone as an aggressor. She is distrustful of those trying to help her. Melissa’s staff believe this will be a commonplace reaction as since the funding cuts began, needs have turned from healing to survival.“There’s a shift from more psychological requests to more practical, more urgent ones,” Portokaloglou says. “We’re going back to those very primal, basic requests.”The prospect of future funding cuts now risks the survival of the whole Greek humanitarian network. The only certainty is that no programmes will be left unscathed. “It’s vertical, horizontal, diagonal,” says Christopoulou. “Everybody’s impacted.”* Name has been changed to protect her identity More

    • 150 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      In a Medieval Greek Fortress, Residents Feud Over ‘Pharaonic’ Cable Car Plan

      by

      The authorities in Monemvasia, founded in the sixth century, say people with limited mobility need access to the town’s peak. But critics say the project would destroy the identity of the site.Carved into a massive rock, the medieval fortress town of Monemvasia rises from the Myrtoan Sea in southern Greece, its Byzantine churches and crumbling palaces a draw for the thousands of visitors who walk its cobbled pathways every year.But there is trouble in this tranquil retreat. A plan to build a cable car to the peak above the town, where a beautifully preserved 12th-century church sits in relative isolation amid stunning views of the coast, has divided the community.The top of Monemvasia is currently accessible only via a winding, 240-yard stone path — a dizzying and exhausting climb.The authorities say the cable car, to be financed with around $7 million from the European Union, will make the site reachable for visitors with limited mobility.But the plan has been met with consternation, and legal challenges, from cultural groups and residents who say it will undermine the rock’s protected status.Standing over Monemvasia is a 12th-century church with stunning views of the Myrtoan Sea.Niki Kitsantonis for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Picks Kimberly Guilfoyle, His Son’s Fiancée, as Ambassador to Greece

      by

      The announcement came as Donald Trump Jr. has been seen with the socialite Bettina Anderson in Florida.It was an announcement made amid a swirl of tabloid speculation: Kimberly Guilfoyle, a loyalist of President-elect Donald J. Trump and — more pointedly — the fiancée of his son Donald Jr. had been named ambassador to Greece.The timing of the move — early Tuesday evening — would have been unremarkable except for what preceded it: rumors that the president-elect’s eldest son was dating a socialite, Bettina Anderson.The new relationship was seemingly documented in a series of photos published earlier on Tuesday by the British tabloid The Daily Mail, which described them as “incontrovertible proof the soon-to-be First Son has moved on” with a “stunning ‘it girl.’”Andrew Surabian, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, 46, did not return a request for comment on his relationship with Ms. Anderson, or on his engagement with Ms. Guilfoyle, to whom he has been betrothed since late 2020. Ms. Anderson, 38, also did not return requests for comment.In his announcement of her posting to Greece, the president-elect called Ms. Guilfoyle “a close friend and ally,” but made no mention of her relationship with his son.“Her extensive experience and leadership in law, media, and politics along with her sharp intellect make her supremely qualified to represent the United States,” the elder Mr. Trump wrote, in a post on Truth Social.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump taps former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle as US ambassador to Greece

      by

      Donald Trump has named Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former Fox News host who has been engaged to Trump’s eldest son, to be the US ambassador to Greece.“For many years, Kimberly has been a close friend and ally,” Trump wrote in a statement. “Kimberly is perfectly suited to foster strong bilateral relations with Greece, advancing our interests on issues ranging from defense cooperation to trade and economic innovation.”Guilfoyle’s nomination would require Senate confirmation. She wrote on social media: “I’m honored to accept President Trump’s nomination to serve as the next Ambassador to Greece and I look forward to earning the support of the US Senate.”The president-elect has been filling out his administration with loyalists, donors and family members. Trump chose Charles Kushner, his son-in-law’s father, to serve as ambassador to France, and Massad Boulos, the father-in-law of daughter Tiffany Trump, to serve as a Middle East adviser.Guilfoyle – who was engaged to Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr in 2020 – has served as a campaign fundraiser and surrogate for Trump. She has not served in any foreign policy or diplomacy role, working as a prosecutor in California before transitioning to a career in television.Guilfoyle left Fox News in 2017. In 2020, the New Yorker detailed allegations from a former assistant of Guilfoyle who had accused her of repeated sexual harassment. More

    • 163 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      Was This Scrap of Cloth Once a Tunic Worn by Alexander the Great?

      by

      A Greek researcher says a piece of purple-and-white fabric discovered decades ago in a tomb in northern Greece may have belonged to Alexander. Others disagree.Could it be a scrap of Alexander the Great’s clothing?A fragile piece of purple-and-white fabric, frayed over more than two millenniums, that was found in one of a series of tombs in northern Greece decades ago is at the center of a new claim ruffling feathers in the country’s archaeological community.The debate erupted this month after Antonis Bartsiokas, a paleoanthropologist at Democritus University of Thrace, published a paper arguing that one of the tombs, believed up to now to house the remains and treasures of Alexander’s father, actually held items belonging to Alexander the Great himself and his half brother. That included a purple chiton, or tunic.The claim challenges the work of one Greece’s most renowned archaeologists, Manolis Andronicos, who led the discovery of the tomb in 1977. Mr. Andronicos, who died in 1992, had asserted that the tomb and artifacts belonged to the father, Philip II of Macedon, whose military victories united ancient Greece and laid the foundation for his son’s conquests from Egypt to India.Mr. Bartsiokas, who specializes in the microanalysis of fossils, instead believes it was Alexander’s half brother, Arrhidaeus, or Philip III, who was buried in the tomb, along with some of Alexander’s possessions, including the chiton, a piece of purple cotton with a layer of white fabric in between.If the new claim were confirmed, it could upend long-held beliefs about one of the most important burial sites in Greece. Some Greek archaeologists say, however, that the claim is without substance.Mr. Bartsiokas said he used new technology and his interpretation of an ancient frieze found in the tomb to make his case.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Deadly Toll in Greece as Heat Waves Sweep the Country

      by

      Several foreigners have gone missing or been found dead after going out for walks in recent days as temperatures in Greece soar.Heat waves that have swept across Greece this month continued to exact a deadly toll over the weekend, with the authorities on Sunday reporting another death on a Greek island. At least six tourists remain missing on Greek islands.The authorities said that a body of a man had been found Saturday on the island of Samos, where a Dutch hiker has been missing for a week. The body has not yet been identified. Searches were also underway for the six other tourists who have gone missing on Greek islands amid searing temperatures this month.“The problem of missing hikers is not new — we have it every year,” said Constantina Dimoglidou, a police spokeswoman. “But this year, it seems more people became disoriented during the heat wave.”One of the missing was Albert Calibet, 59, a retired police officer who is a dual citizen of France and the United States, on the Aegean island of Amorgos. Mr. Calibet had set out on a trek alone on Tuesday morning, Ms. Dimoglidou said.Also missing were two Frenchwomen, aged 73 and 64, on another Aegean island, Sikinos; an Israeli couple in the area of Vytina in the Peloponnese peninsula; and a 55-year-old United States citizen on the islet of Mathraki near Corfu, the authorities said.The announcements came only days after the remains of Michael Mosley, a British medical journalist and documentary maker, were found on the island of Symi after his disappearance during a walk. At least three other tourists have died while out walking during the extreme heat this month.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 88 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Greece Closes Schools and Acropolis Amid Heat

      by

      Concerns are also growing for two foreign hikers who have gone missing on Greek islands amid the soaring temperatures.Intense heat in Greece prompted a mini lockdown for two days starting on Wednesday, with some schools closing and the Acropolis restricting visiting hours, as the authorities searched for two foreign hikers just a few days after a British medical journalist was found dead on the island of Symi after going for a walk in searing heat.The onset of sweltering temperatures, which meteorologists said might set a record on Thursday, prompted the Health Ministry to issue a warning to older people and people with chronic ailments to stay indoors. The authorities also advised anyone who works outdoors to avoid strenuous activity from noon to 5 p.m.Temperatures were forecast to reach 41 Celsius, or 105.8 Fahrenheit, in Athens on Wednesday and rise to 42 Celsius (107.6 Fahrenheit) on Thursday before dipping on Friday, according to Greece’s National Meteorological Service. The heat elsewhere in the Greek mainland was expected to reach 43 Celsius.Walking up Lycabettus Hill in Athens on Wednesday. Temperatures were forecast to reach 105.8 degrees Fahrenheit in the city on Wednesday and 107.6 degrees on Thursday.Alkis Konstantinidis/ReutersThe tinderbox conditions also raised concerns about wildfires after a disastrous summer last year, when wildfires killed more than 20 people in Greece and razed vast areas of forestland. Greece’s civil protection authority and the army were conducting 24-hour patrols of major forests this week in an effort to prevent fires from breaking out.Meteorologists have warned that Europe is on course to have another scorching summer. Last summer’s heat and wildfires hurt some Greek businesses that rely on tourism, although the country still reported record tourism revenue for the year overall. This year, while many visitors still plan to visit the Mediterranean nation, others are opting for cooler Northern European countries.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More