ATHENS - About 1,000 supporters of Greece's Golden Dawn party gathered outside parliament on Saturday to protest against the pre-trial detention of their leader Nikolaos Mihaloliakos on charges of forming a criminal organization.
Clad in black clothes, carrying torches and Greek flags, the ultra-right party's supporters shouted slogans such as "hands off Golden Dawn, don't jail nationalists" to the sound of Greek folk and marching songs.
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It was Golden Dawn's most high-profile public action since a government crackdown against it in September, following the killing of an anti-fascist rapper by one of its supporters.
But the poor turnout of just a few hundred sympathizers showed Golden Dawn is still struggling to recover from the action of the authorities.
Thirteen of Golden Dawn's 18 lawmakers are either in pre-trial detention, face charges, or have had their parliamentary immunity lifted, as prosecutors build a case that its leadership was involved in paramilitary-style attacks against political opponents and immigrants.
