728 European Journal of Criminology 10(6) remarkable restraint, on the other hand, in cases where members of the neo-fascistic party Chrysi Avyi (Golden Dawn) have perpetrated open attacks on immigrants and their property (Xenakis, 2012), and where they have issued threats against activist organisations that offer assistance to immigrants in need (see Eleftherotypia, 8 February 2013). More generally, according to data provided by Greek and international NGOs, racist violence has been a serious and rapidly growing issue in the country (Xenakis and Cheliotis, 2013a). It comes as no surprise that the number of immigrants who wish to leave Greece has reportedly been on the rise (although this has also been due to the contraction of employment opportunities in key sectors of the informal labour market, such as the construction industry, amidst conditions of financial crisis since 2009; BBC, 17 April 2011, 20 February 2012). An accumulating throng of reports from domestic and especially international media and organisations have strongly condemned Greece for the unjust and harsh treatment immigrants receive in the country, as well as for the continuing failure of the Greek state to tackle the issue (see e.g. Amnesty International, 2012a; Human Rights Watch, 2013a; UNHCHR, 3 December 2012). This criticism, described by segments of the Greek press in such terms as ‘international ridicule’ (To Vima, 20 July 2012) and ‘repeated slaps’ (Kyriakatiki Eleftherotypia, 3 March 2013), has not yet brought about substantial remedial action on the part of the Greek state and its authorities, who have rather chosen to erect walls of denial. As recently as March 2013, the Greek government reportedly tried to exert diplomatic pressure upon the US State Department to exclude critical reference to Greece from the introduction to its annual human rights report (To Vima, 16 March 2013). When criticisms come to light, as they increasingly do, they are typically dealt with by the Greek state, whether directly or indirectly, through various rhetorical defences: from rationalising the type of treatment immigrants experience in Greece by emphasising the criminal and other dangers their presence allegedly creates (a technique aptly captured in the alltoo-common phrase ‘I am not a racist, but’), to explaining away failure to address the problem by reference to the exceptionally large number of irregular migrants in Greece and a lack of financial resources, especially since the onset of the financial crisis in the country (see e.g. To Vima, 19 November 2012), to undermining the extent of the problem (see e.g. To Vima, 21 January 2013) or even denying the very possibility that racism can manifest itself amongst Greek people. As the Greek prime minister himself put the latter point in a highly publicised speech he gave in March 2013, Greeks have been against racism ‘from the depths of centuries’, because they are both culturally and biologically predisposed to oppose it; because ‘their tradition does not allow them [to do otherwise]’ and because ‘there are very powerful antibodies in our DNA, in our gene, which fight that “virus”’ (Prime Minister’s Press Office, 17 March 2013). It is little wonder that harsh state policies towards immigrants have not only continued unabated, but have also intensified and expanded in recent months and years. In 2012, for instance, a barbed-wire fence was constructed along a section (12.5 km) of Greece’s mainland borders with Turkey in the prefecture of Evros in a bid to prevent irregular immigration. Similar developments have taken place inside Greece, although often under the familiar banner of Greek philoxenia. Most notably, an unprecedentedly massive police operation to capture irregular migrants was launched around the country in 2012, Downloaded from euc.sagepub.com at Oxford University Libraries on November 25, 2013