Greece's Golden Dawn Party

Introduction
In September, a state used legal force to silence the nation's third most popular political party. Five democratically elected officials were arrested, including the party’s leader. The next week, fifteen more party officials were arrested along with thirty five party members, making it the largest persecution of a political party since 1964. As the public officials were handcuffed, they implored reporters to heed the political motivations behind their arrest, and encouraged the public to support their “moral and just struggle against the corrupt system”. Later, the party released a statement on their website "ideas cannot be prosecuted", and the government does not have the power to silence a political party (Reuters).
Traditionally, this narrative reads as a gross violation of freedom of speech and an unjust trumping of opposition; however, the party in question is Greece’s Golden Dawn Party, a popular neo-nazi gang often described as a cross between Hezbollah and the Tea Party (Kakissis). In their manifesto, they claim all immigrants, especially those that aren’t caucasian, are illegal, and that “Greece should be for the Greeks”. The party strives for a Greece that acknowledges "the spiritual, ethnic and racial inequality of humans" and often resorts to violent tactics achieve these ends.
Since the Greek constitution does not allow the government to silence political parties, the only way the government can rein in the party is through criminal prosecution. Unfortunately, the Golden Dawn (GD) reflects a lager trend of European Populism Extremist Parties (PEPs) that have slowly gained influence in Europe since the 1990s. Significant literature covers these parties, and evidence has been gathered on how to be...

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...y gaining more support, and are not naturally withering away. Political Scientist have proven that excluding these extremist parties from the political sphere not only reduces violence and dramatically reduces their political power, but also forces the parties to take on a less ideologically extreme position. There is a clear problem, a clear pattern for the problem, and clear proof that the problem is not solving itself. Excluding extreme parties form the political sphere not only limits there influence, but forces them to adapt less extreme positions. Given these facts, the recent arrest of Gold Dawn officials is not a narrative of a state exerting unnecessary force, but rather the long overdue action of a government to quell violence, promote democracy and exert necessary force to ensure that every Greek citizen feels safe and secure within the nation’s borders.