Approximately 2,000 supporters of Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party held torches and chanted “Foreigners out of Greece!” as they marched through central Athens ahead of the country’s new elections, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
The heavily policed rally on Tuesday ended peacefully.
The extreme-right political party, whose logo closely resembles a swastika, received approximately 7 percent of the vote in the May 6 elections and 21 seats in parliament.
The election, however, failed to produce a coalition government because of strong disagreement among parties over whether to honor Greece’s international bailout loan terms and new elections are currently set for June 17.
Earlier this month, the leader of Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, Nikos Michaloliakos, claimed that Nazi concentration camps did not use ovens and gas chambers to exterminate Jews during the Holocaust.
"There were no ovens — it's a lie. I believe it's a lie. There were no gas chambers either," Michaloliakos said at the time.
Included in its political platform, the Golden Dawn party seeks to restore national pride to Greece and expel foreigners. The party campaigned heavily on an anti-immigrant platform under the slogan "so we can rid this land of filth."
The party, whose logo has been found at the sites of anti-Semitic attacks, openly displays copies of “Mein Kampf,” as well as other works on Greek racial superiority at party headquarters.