Greece arrests 5 more neo-Nazi MPs

Greek authorities have arrested four members of the parliament who belong to the country’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party along with its leader Nikos Mihaloliakos following the alleged killing of a leftist musician.

According to a statement released by court officials on Saturday night, the five are now under interrogation on criminal charges, a process which will take up to five days.

The government made the arrests following the threats made by Michaloliakos to cripple the country by pulling its lawmakers on Friday.

“If the country enters a cycle of instability, it is those who demonize Golden Dawn who will be responsible, not [us],” Michaloliakos told reporters on Thursday.

The arrests provoked many faithful party members into staging demonstrations against what is known as an illegal decision outside the police station where the suspects were being held.

One of the demonstrators, Artemis Matheopoulos, who is also a party member, said to a reporter, “Golden Dawn is still there, it will not retreat. You can’t put its ideas in prison; we will fight to the end.”

Meanwhile, Deputy Prosecutor Charalambos Yourliotis declared, “I have finished my inquiry and I transferred the dossier to the prosecutor of the Supreme Court. It (the party) is a criminal organization.”

On September 18, Pavlos Fyssas, a 34-year-old leftist rapper, was stabbed to death by a member of Golden Dawn party outside a café in Keratsini, in the west of the Greek capital, Athens.

Golden Dawn party, which won nearly seven percent of the ballets in the country’s 2012 general elections, now has about 12 percent of the population’s support.