In the evening of October 6th, an antifascist demo took place in the city of Volos (central Greece). By 18.00pm, approximately 300 protesters gathered at the square of Aghios Nikolaos, including comrades from the anarchist/libertarian space but also many local leftists. Shortly before the beginning of the march, some comrades kicked a neo-Nazi’s ass. Soon thereafter, the number of participants reached 900 demonstrators.
At the very same time, the neo-Nazis of the Golden Dawn (Chrissi Avgi) had called for a ‘Pan-Thessalic rally against austerity measures’ in front of their informal local offices, located on Skenderani street. No more than a hundred thugs attended the miserable fascist meeting. Apparently, both the nationalists and the police were extremely worried that clashes would break out, so they had deployed heavy repressive forces across the city streets, such as four police buses and several anti-riot squadrons from nearby towns to protect the Golden Dawn members, as well as all of the DIAS motorcycle units and dozens of plainclothes cops from Volos.
Anti-riot squadrons surrounded Aghios Nikolaos square in order to cut off the antifascist demo, but the protesters did not get intimidated. The march started in a combative way and walked down Dimitriados street, where there were small-scale confrontations as soon as cops fired tear gas and stun grenades against demonstrators, in an attempt to disperse the crowd. The antifascists stayed together in one bloc and various bystanders chose to join the march, too. They continued on Iasonos street and ended the demo in the University (Tholos), where an assembly was held to determine future actions.
The big turnout, as well as the passion of antifascist protesters, apart from making fascists a lot more wary and scared of counter-attacks, demonstrated that people can accomplish far more than they ever thought possible when they organize themselves in a serious and decisive manner. Fascists and their poison have no place in Volos, or anywhere for that matter. Even if they will attempt to regroup and make their appearance on the streets, they will be faced with counter-protests, and hopefully next time they won’t be so well-protected by their fellow cops.
Following this demonstration, another antifascist action took place in downtown Volos on October 10th. Nearly 50 comrades took to the streets, carried out flyposting and distributed counter-informative leaflets. They chanted slogans on their way until they reached Skenderani street, wanting to ‘pay a visit’ to the fascist nest. They stayed outside the unofficial headquarters of Golden Dawn for about fifteen minutes, when the local police chief intervened together with DIAS motorized forces. Despite the ‘friendly talk’ of the police chief, the comrades remained in their position for five more minutes. Passersby expressed spontaneous support as the antifascists decided to leave, shouting out very loud the need to smash fascists and make nationalism vanish.