Police on Wednesday arrested 25 people, including 12 minors – alleged members of the Nationalist Youth of Thessaloniki who are accused of committing robberies, theft and violence in Greece’s second largest city.
“Essentially, this is a criminal organisation that, beyond political motives and motivations, engages in criminal acts,” Greece’s Minister of Citizen Protection, Michalis Chrisochoidis told a press conference with the Thessaloniki police chief.
Nationalist Youth of Thessaloniki was founded in 2016, and initially collaborated with the fascist group Holy Battalion 2012. It operated an account on the X social media platform under the name Defend Salonica, which ceased to operate on Wednesday. Its posts, which date back to 2020, included videos of its members burning the Turkish flag, anti-migrant messages and photos of protests against the conversion of Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia into a mosque.
There were also photos insisting “Macedonia is Greek” – a slogan referring to the use of the name North Macedonia by Greece’s northern neighbour. In 2018, Athens and Skopje signed a landmark agreement which ended the nearly three-decades-long “name” dispute between the two. Macedonia changed its name to North Macedonia but the identity of its majority population remained Macedonian. The compromise agreement still raises hackles in both countries.
The Nationalist Youth of Thessaloniki group was allegedly set up at the Vocational High School in Evosmos, a suburb of the city. In 2022, the 5th Association of Secondary Education Officials of Thessaloniki condemned the actions of members of fascist groups at the Vocational High School of Evosmos after they attacked students who were protesting, distributed flyers with nationalist content and stuck up posters of nationalist groups.
The group has also been accused of being involved in the beating of a 15-year-old refugee student at another school, the Intercultural High School of Evosmos in December 2021.
Rizospastis, a Greek daily newspaper owned by KKE, the Greek communist party, reported that the Nationalist Youth of Thessaloniki threw Molotov cocktails, firecrackers, stones and crowbars at students, parents, and teachers gathered outside a vocational school in Stavroupoli, another suburb of Thessaloniki, in September 2021. In October 2021, the group allegedly attacked members of the KKE with chains and tasers.
