The extreme-right Golden Dawn party in Greece is mobilizing people against plans to build a mosque in Athens. "If a mosque is constructed for Islamist criminals in Greece, a front of 100,000 Greeks headed by Golden Dawn will be created," party spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris recently told supporters at a rally.
In May, the Muslim Association of Greece said it had received a crude note littered with profanities, warning its members to leave the country or face "slaughter like chickens." Police said they were examining the note, which had as its backdrop the symbol of neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, which blames migrants for Greece's economic woes and has pledged to throw them out of the country.
Golden Dawn, which has 18 seats in parliament and is suspected by rights groups of encouraging supporters to beat up migrants, denied sending the note.
Greece is home to over one million Muslims, mainly migrants from Albania and North Africa, including a community of over 200,000 Greek citizens of Turkish origin in the country's northeast.
An estimated 500,000 Muslims live in Athens. In the past, planning permission for a mosque in the capital was not granted, but four weeks ago, the Greek government released US$ 1.25 million for the first state-sponsored mosque in the country. The house of worship is to be located in Votanikos, about three kilometers from the Athens city center.
