(ELA), came to reinforce an institutional pride that had been hovering around zero. Ater dismantling “17 November” and especially ater contributing to the impeccable (though, of course, extremely expensive) Olympic Games of 2004, the Hellenic Police’s self-esteem and public image reached its historically highest level. However, the political and operational priority given at that time to the struggle against terrorism came at a cost, as organized crime in Greece kept roaring on. The Hellenic People was not able to boast about combating as efectively the qualitatively new form of crime alicting Greek society. Hardly had the police forgotten the practices that marked their identity in Greek dissidents’ memory, when, faced with new crime, they seemed to turn increasingly to practices of illegal violence, having furthermore been equipped with modern, always heavier weaponry. The police’s success against let-wing terrorism had given it the boost of self-conidence always desired but never achieved in public opinion.But just four years ater the Olympic Games, the events of December 2008, triggered by the murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos, presented all the features of a virtual revolt of the Greek youth. It is telling that since 2004 Greece practically has generated its own body of caselaw in the European Court of Human Rights regarding violations of the right to life (Article 2 of the European Convention) and the ban on torture (Article 3). There have been four Article 2 convictions, mostly with regard to applications by Romani (non-Greeks and Greek alike),30 while there are already six Article 3 convictions for torture, again mostly against immigrants and Romani.31 The emblematic case arrived in early 2011, when Belgium and Greece were both convicted for inhuman practices, ater the refoulement of an Afghan seeking asylum in Greece, on the grounds of the Dublin II Regulation. The court found that the Belgian authorities “should have known” that the conditions of detention in Greece for asylum seekers were inhumane. For the irst time since 1974, Greece is practically viewed as a destination to which a person cannot be returned because of the inhumane conditions. The term used by the court was “blatant omissions”, for cases that constitute a “thermometer” of the culture of each State’s police services. 10/ THE CONSOLIDATION OF ULTRA-RIGHT IDEOLOGY What follows is the most complicated part of the present study from a methodological point of view. Undoubtedly, the basic elements of ultra-right ideology (racism, sexism, nationalism) are widespread within the Hellenic Police. Undoubtedly too, these ideologies, either as interpretative exhortations during the crisis (as well as before it) or as systematic frameworks of analysis, do not 30. 31. Makaratzis vs. Greece (20.12.2004), Karagiannopoulos vs. Greece (21.6.2007), Celniku vs. Greece (5.7.2007), and Lonides vs. Greece (8.1.2009) Mbekos & Koutropoulos vs. Greece (13.12.2005), Μhn Ghassan Allaham vs. Greece (18.1.2007), Zelilof vs. Greece (24.5.2007), Petropoulou vs. Greece (24.5.2007), Galotskin vs. Greece (6.12.2007), Stephanou vs. Greece (22.4.2010). MAPPING ULTRA-RIGHT EXTREMISM, XENOPHOBIA AND RACISM WITHIN THE GREEK STATE APPARATUS | 35