The increasingly bold Golden Dawn party has precipitated a political crisis in Athens whose resolution is far from certain. Golden Dawn, the largest fascist party in Europe and the third largest party in Greece, has grown rapidly during the economic crisis both by scapegoating immigrants, ethnic minorities and queer people, and offering basic necessities like food to Greek citizens impoverished by the country’s austerity program.

Until this month, it has operated with the implicit consent of the center-right New Democracy-led coalition government, despite extensive evidence that party activists have used violence to terrorize people living at the margins of Greek society.

But the party apparently crossed a red line this month. In mid September, fifty or so Golden Dawn thugs assaulted Communist Party (KKE) members putting up political posters in a working-class suburb of Athens. The following week, Pavlos Fyssas, an anti-fascist hip-hop artist, was murdered by a self-proclaimed Golden Dawn member in the working-class district of Keratsini.