ETHNIC AND RACIAL STUDIES 7 Table 1. Summary of documents analysed. Downloaded by [82.28.181.28] at 02:36 18 February 2016 Genre Government responses and submissions to human rights organizations European Commission against Racism and Intolerance European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Commissioner for Human Rights UN Human Rights Council Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination Total Parliament proceedings Debates Oral questions Written replies by ministries Total Press releases – MCPPO Total documents Number of documents 4 15 2 2 4 27 36 32 20 88 21 136 violence’) from the analysis of texts. Both digital – using NVivo qualitative software – and tactile (paper) coding were employed to ensure consistency in the application of the analytical themes. The topoi and argumentation resulting from the analysis were then organized into the three key narratives which are presented in this article. The analysis also aimed to ascertain continuities and disruptions between the long-term framing of anti-migrant violence. The data analysis revealed that government actors – with the exception of official submissions to UN agencies – rarely bring up the issue themselves. They either respond to references to violence against migrants by other social actors – human rights organizations, opposition MPs or journalists – or sometimes, in parliamentary debates, they do not respond at all (HP 2004, 2009a, 2013a). The narrow focus on government-level has obscured to some extent, acknowledgements of racist violence and criticisms towards state agencies by left-wing opposition parties. However, it produced clear and chronologically persistent topoi and argumentation strategies, which are explored in the following sections. 4. ‘Isolated events’ and ‘no evidence’: violence as not systemic A first narrative, identified in the relevant literature (AI 2012; Christopoulos 2014), constructs anti-migrant violence as a series of ‘isolated events’ rather than a systemic or social practice. While employed mostly in conjunction to violence perpetrated by security agencies, it is also adopted in relation to its exercise by non-state actors. In response to concerns raised by ECRI in 1999, the then PASOK government referred to ‘very few and isolated instances of hostile behaviour by individuals outside the mainstream of society’ (ECRI 1999, 24), mirroring the discursive framing of Golden Dawn violence as exceptional and marginalized.