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The attacks have risen in severity — with the weapons going from fist and feet to assaults with clubs, bats, knives and powerful dogs.

“Violence is getting wilder and wilder and we still have the same pattern of attacks … committed by groups of people in quite an organized way,” Kostis Papaioannou, former head of the Greek National Commission for Human Rights, told The Associated Press earlier this month.

“Every day we see someone who complained of (some form) of racist violence,” added Nikitas Kanakis, president of the Greek section of Doctors of the World.

Living wages have plummeted for Greeks over the economic crisis of the last three years and about 50% of young people are unemployed. Greece is the landing point for many illegall immigrants looking for a way in to the European Union and have become a convenient scapegoat for many angry Greeks.

The Golden Dawn party now has favourable support from of 22% of Greeks, about the same amount as Canada’s Liberal party enjoys here, the National Post’sWayne K. Spear notes.

“One can only imagine how much more difficult the already challenging work of economic recovery becomes as reformist-oriented regimes are displaced seat-by-seat to make way for skin-headed truncheon-bearing revolutionaries,” he wrote.

The Golden Dawn party has played down any role its supporters may have in the racist violence.

“The only racist attacks that exist in Greece for the last years are the attacks that illegal immigrants are doing against Greeks,” Ilias Panagiotaros, a Golden Dawn lawmaker, said.