According to the network, groups of students dressed in black and carrying Greek flags, who identified themselves as ‘patriots’ and ‘nationalists’, marched chanting slogans in favour of Golden Dawn. Days later, fascist slogans appeared on the Volos secondary education building, on a wall bearing graffiti in memory of Vasilis Maggos in the workers’ quarters of Nea Ionia, and, signed ‘Golden Dawn’, on the walls of the Volos Music School.
The network said the incidents were not isolated, noting that similar actions had occurred in other cities. Its full statement reads:
‘On the afternoon of Monday 8 June 2026, members of the Anti-Fascist Education Network of Magnesia came face to face with a group of around 20 young middle and high school children in the Agia Paraskevi neighbourhood. All of them were boys in black clothes and carrying huge Greek flags, and when asked they identified themselves as “patriots” and “nationalists”. A few minutes later, they marched through the neighbourhood chanting slogans in favour of Golden Dawn.
‘On 13 June 2026, some people wrote fascist slogans on the Volos secondary education building, as well as on graffiti in memory of Vasilis Maggos in the workers’ quarters of Nea Ionia. On 15 June, slogans signed “Golden Dawn” defaced the walls of the Volos Music School.
‘Given that such phenomena have been observed simultaneously in other cities, such as Alexandroupolis, and that in Volos students chanted slogans in favour of Golden Dawn at the 25 March parade, a targeted effort is emerging to infiltrate fascist ideas into the sensitive space of student youth, with the aim of recruiting new members, a development that requires our immediate pedagogical intervention.
‘As education officials, we must reflect: what drives young children, in this critical age phase of building their identity, to be inspired by fascist and Nazi ideology? And above all, what is the role of education in confronting this new fascist threat? What pedagogical, social and collective actions can prevent or reverse the initiation of these young children into fascism, in order to build a society based on acceptance, solidarity, inclusion, freedom and democracy?
‘The fascist organisations operating in our schools cultivate intolerance towards anything “different” and target social groups. Both past and recent history teach us that hateful rhetoric quickly translates into weapons training, the formation of assault squads, and violent attacks or even murders, with the ultimate goal of destroying democratic freedoms.
‘This was demonstrated by the course of Golden Dawn, whose leadership was finally convicted and imprisoned as a criminal organisation for a series of crimes and the murders of Pavlos Fyssas and Shahzad Luqman, among others. The same is confirmed by the ongoing trial of the fascist group Defend Salonica in Thessaloniki, where minors are being tried for weapons possession and violent attacks.
‘School is not just a place for transmitting sterile knowledge, but the primary arena for shaping free and democratic citizens. We have a duty to stop our students from being initiated into fascism, by promoting a school environment based on acceptance, inclusion, solidarity and democracy.
‘We call on all, students, teachers and citizens in every capacity, to fight once more, as so often in human history, against fascism and the practices that cultivate it, both in schools and in the social fabric.
‘We particularly call on the Magnesia Secondary Education Directorate, the Magnesia ELME, the teachers’ associations of each school, the parents’ and guardians’ associations, and every individual teacher and parent, to take immediate action.’
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