Yiannis Boutaris, considered to be perhaps the most liberal mayor in Greece, was physically attacked by far-right protestors Saturday in Thessaloniki.
Washington Post:
On Saturday, Boutaris was attacked by about a dozen far-right protesters, who kicked him in the head and legs and beat him with bottles. Eventually, the mayor's aides stepped in, ferrying the leader away from his attackers. He was taken to a hospital and kept overnight for treatment.
The mayor was participating in a flag-lowering ceremony to honor those killed in the Pontic Genocide, a World War I-era attack on ethnic Greeks living in Anatolia. Ottoman Turks slaughtered hundreds of thousands and destroyed their churches.
"There were several people that attacked me. They were hitting me everywhere," Boutaris told the Greek Reporter website. "It was a nightmare."
As the mayor of Greece’s second largest city, Mr. Boutaris has been praised across the EU for a number of reasons
He's the force behind the city's new Holocaust museum, a "beacon against racism and fascism," he said earlier this month in Berlin. He has offered up LGBTQ-friendly policies and criticized the Greeks who want Macedonia to change its name. Proponents of the name change say Macedonia is appropriating Greek culture and heritage. "History cannot be stolen," he said in a January interview.
The European Commission has praised Boutaris as a "beacon" who has crafted an "island of hope" and "model for all of Greece."
Boutaris's politics have made him a frequent target of Greece's growing far-right. The website of the pro-fascist Golden Dawn has accused the mayor of stoking "popular rage" and suggested he's in Turkey's pocket. The group accused him of being a traitor to his country because of his position on Macedonia. At a far-right rally earlier this year, leaflets calling Boutaris "a slave of the Jews" were scattered around the city.
Yes, let us here in America continue to think that our own far right extremists can be appeased with appeals to help their ‘’economic anxiety’’ while we, at the same time, continue to appeal for a sense of social justice.
In fact, let’s be thankful, for the time being, that this country is in better economic shape than Greece at the moment.
Because If this economy turns sluggish or even collapses in this political environment, I know who they are coming for first, regardless of the causes of the sluggishness.
I can’t afford to be naive or confused about that.