Image copyright EPA Image caption Nationalists were angry that the mayor (far left) was attending a remembrance event

The mayor of Greece's second-largest city Thessaloniki has been treated in hospital after being beaten up by about a dozen people, officials say.

Yiannis Boutaris, 75, was kicked in the head and legs and beaten with bottles by a group of nationalists angry over his appearance at a remembrance event.

The mayor, who is known for his anti-nationalist views, was attending a ceremony to mark the killing of ethnic Greeks by Turks in World War One.

Politicians have condemned the attack.

A dozen people approached Mr Boutaris demanding he leave a flag-lowering ceremony in Thessaloniki on Saturday to mark what is known in Greece as the "Pontic Genocide", Thessaloniki city council president Calypso Goula said.

Ms Goula, who was also attending the event, described seeing several men throw bottles at Mr Boutaris and kicking the mayor in the head and legs after he had fallen down.

Image copyright EPA

"It was a nightmare," Mr Boutaris was quoted by the Greek Reporter website as saying.

"There were several people that attacked me. They were hitting me everywhere."

The mayor's aides helped to get him away from the attackers, and take him to hospital where he was reportedly kept in overnight.

Image copyright EPA

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, in a statement, called the attackers "far-right bullies who have to face the consequences of their actions".

Greece's ruling left-wing Syriza party described it as a "fascist attempt to target and intimidate" the mayor.

The main opposition party, New Democracy, also condemned the attack and called for the perpetrators to be "arrested immediately".</s>THESSALONIKI, Greece — The 75-year-old mayor of Greece’s second-largest city was brutally assaulted by a far-right mob at a public gathering over the weekend, an attack that brought gleeful expressions of support from nationalist groups and heightened concerns about a rise in hate crime in the country.

The mayor, Yiannis Boutaris, who is known for his liberalism and outspoken views against far-right violence and racism, was set upon Saturday afternoon in the northern city of Thessaloniki by about a dozen people during a ceremony commemorating the World War I genocide of Pontic Greeks by Turkish forces.

In video footage of the attack on the mayor, the white-haired Mr. Boutaris is heckled by a crowd of men, some masked and dressed in black. He was thrown to the ground, punched and kicked before being escorted to a car that was vandalized by protesters, and he was briefly hospitalized with head, back and leg injuries.

Nationalist groups, notably the far-right Golden Dawn, have capitalized on growing frustration in Greece. The economy has been hobbled by years of austerity imposed on the debt-racked country by international creditors, and a huge migrant influx has further strained tensions.</s>THESSALONIKI, Greece — Police in Greece’s second-largest city say they have arrested two people as suspects in an attack that left the mayor of Thessaloniki hospitalized.

About a dozen people set upon Mayor Yiannis Boutaris at a Saturday ceremony honouring Greek victims of purges by the Turks during World War I and the subsequent Greek-Turkish war. He was thrown to the ground and kicked all over his body.

Ippokratio General Hospital director Vana Papachristodoulou says the 75-year-old Boutaris was admitted with a leg injury and bruises and in a state of shock, and discharged early Sunday.

Police say one of the detained suspects is a 36 year old, the other age 20. They are looking for more suspects.

The Greek government blamed the beating on “extreme-right thugs.” Boutaris is reviled by extreme nationalists.</s>THESSALONIKI, Greece — A city official says the mayor of Greece's second-largest city has been hospitalized with head, back and leg injuries after being set upon by nationalist extremists.

Thessaloniki City Council President Calypso Goula said Mayor Yiannis Boutaris was attending a flag-lowering ceremony Saturday in commemoration of the so-called "Pontic Genocide," the killing of ethnic Greeks by the Turks during World War I and the subsequent Greek-Turkish war.

Goula, who also was there, says about a dozen people approached the 75-year-old Boutaris and told him to leave the event, then attacked him with bottles. The mayor is known for his strong anti-nationalist stance.

Goula says Boutaris fell down and was kicked in the head and legs.

Representatives of Pontic Greek organizations say during a church service earlier commemorating the victims, attending politicians were booed.</s>THESSALONIKI, Greece -- Two people have been arrested as suspects in an attack that left the mayor of Greece's second-largest city hospitalized, Thessaloniki police said Sunday. About a dozen people set upon Thessaloniki Mayor Yiannis Boutaris at a Saturday ceremony honoring Greek victims of purges carried out by Turks during World War I. He was thrown to the ground and kicked all over his body.

"I lived a nightmare," the 75-year-old Boutaris said after he was discharged from the hospital Sunday. "They were hitting me all over, with fists and feet."

The mayor was in a state of shock when he arrived at the hospital where he was treated for a leg injury and bruises, Ippokratio General Hospital director Vana Papachristodoulou said.

"He wanted to leave immediately, but we insisted and kept him overnight," she said.

One of the detained suspects is a 36 year old with previous arrests for robbery, police said. The other, a 20 year old, confessed, saying he was angered by a statement Boutaris recently made favoring friendlier relations with Turkey, police said.

Police are looking for more suspects. The Greek government blamed the beating on "extreme-right thugs."

Some Greeks with right-wing and far-right views praised the attack on social media. The mayor of Mycenae-Argos, who is a member of the center-right opposition party New Democracy, tweeted "This is the fate of the traitors," with "traitors" written all in capital letters.

Boutaris, a winemaker who was elected Thessaloniki's mayor in 2010 on a center-left ticket that ended the city's 24 years of conservative rule, is reviled by extreme nationalists.

The mayor's supporters are organizing a rally for Wednesday night at the site of the attack, next to the city's iconic White Tower, a 16th-century remnant of Turkish fortifications.

"All of us who believe in democracy and debate, let us gather in the White Tower," they said in a statement.</s>THESSALONIKI, GREECE: The mayor of Greece’s second city Thessaloniki was hospitalized early on Sunday after an assault by suspected far-right members at a rally, officials said. Yiannis Boutaris, 75, had to be escorted from an event commemorating the massacre of Black Sea Greeks in Turkey during and after World War I when members of the crowd turned violent. “They were hitting me everywhere. Kicks, punches, the lot,” Boutaris told state agency ANA Sunday. “It was a despicable attack, but I am well.” Footage from the event shows Boutaris initially being heckled. As he starts to leave, people start throwing objects at him and he falls to the ground. Some of the attackers tried to break the windows of his car as it sped off. The office of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said the attackers were “far-right thugs.” A maverick politician, Boutaris has repeatedly angered hardliners in Greece with controversial statements on Macedonia, Turkey and Israel.

 AFP</s>A city official says the mayor of Greece's second-largest city has been hospitalized with head, back and leg injuries after being set upon by nationalist extremists.

Thessaloniki City Council President Calypso Goula said Mayor Yiannis Boutaris was attending a flag-lowering ceremony Saturday in commemoration of the so-called "Pontic Genocide," the killing of ethnic Greeks by the Turks in the Black Sea region during World War I and the subsequent Greek-Turkish War.

Goula, who also was there, says about a dozen people approached the 75-year-old Boutaris and told him to leave the event, then attacked him with bottles. The mayor is known for his strong anti-nationalist stance.

Goula says Boutaris fell down and was kicked in the head and legs.

"They were hitting me everywhere. Kicks, punches, the lot," Boutaris told state agency ANA Sunday. "It was a despicable attack, but I am well."

Footage from the event shows Boutaris initially being heckled. As he starts to leave, people start throwing objects at him and he falls to the ground.

Some of the attackers tried to break the windows of his car as it sped off.



 The office of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said the attackers were "far-right thugs."

Representatives of Pontic Greek organizations say during a church service earlier commemorating the victims, attending politicians were booed.

A maverick politician, Boutaris has repeatedly angered hardliners in Greece with controversial statements on Macedonia, Turkey and Israel.

Among them is calling Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the modern Republic of Turkey and a hate figure in Greece, a "great leader." Atatürk is a native of Thessaloniki, which was one of the largest cities in the Balkans during the 500-year-long Ottoman rule.

He also angered nationalists for calling the Republic of Macedonia, which has a name dispute with Greece, simply as Macedonia, which is also a region in northern Greece with Thessaloniki as its capital.

Since collapse of the economy in the 2008 global crisis, the far-left and the far-right has been on the rise in Greece as a response to centrist and pro-European parties which were mainly held responsible. While the left-wing SYRIZA became the governing party with 36.3 percent of the votes in in the latest elections in September 2015, neo-Nazi, Eurosceptic and Islamophobic Golden Dawn becoming the third largest party with 7 percent of the votes, although trailing far behind runner-up center-right New Democracy at 27.8 percent.

A massive influx of refugees from Syria and other West Asian countries into Greece across the Aegean starting from 2015 also served well for the Greek far-right, even in the Aegean Islands that traditionally vote for the left. Far-right groups began anti-migration protests in mainland Greece, joining in protests by locals in the islands overwhelmed by the influx and staging attacks on refugee centers.

While Greeks claim that the massacres in Aegean and Black Sea regions (Pontus in Greek) between 1914 and 1922 amounted to a genocide, Turks say that it was inter-ethnic conflict that mainly began with the expulsion of Turks and Muslims from the Balkans at late as 1912. Armed Greek militia was formed when the Russian Empire invaded eastern half of the Black Sea region during World War I, only to retreat with the communist revolution in 1917. Starting from 1916, Greece sided with the Allied powers and officially declared war against Central Powers (including Ottoman Empire) in late 1917.

Following their defeat, Greece invaded western Anatolia up to the outskirts of Ankara, receiving significant support from the local Greek population. Whereas in the north, Greek militia was being supplied by the Allied and Greek navies through the Black Sea, posing a grave threat to the Turkish nationalist government in Ankara and to supply routes with their new Bolshevik allies north of the Black Sea. Until the establishment of the regular Turkish army in 1921, which mainly fought the invading Greek armies in the western front, the Ankara government responded the Greek militia groups in the Black Sea by its own militia groups to secure the region. With the defeat of the Greek army in 1922, the two countries signed a population exchange deal, which included some 300,000 Pontic Greeks and end the Greek presence on southern coast of the Black Sea.</s>The mayor of Greece's second-largest city was admitted to hospital with injuries after he was set upon by a group of ultra-nationalist demonstrators.

The attack took place in the northern coastal city of Thessaloniki on Saturday during a commemoration marking the killing of Greeks in the Ottoman Empire during the tail end of the World War I.

Known to many Greeks as the "Pontic Genocide", the killings are marked annually by nationalists and right-wing groups and parties.

The 75-year-old mayor, Yiannis Boutaris, reportedly sustained injuries to his head, back and legs after being attacked with bottles and kicked in the head and body.

It comes on the heels of a surge in far-right violence in Greece.

Kostas Tsakalidis, a Thessaloniki-based photographer, witnessed the attack while covering the flag-lowering ceremony during Saturday's commemoration.

"A group of people started to shout at him for his opinion on the Macedonian dispute, the LBGTQI community, Turkey, and [nationalist] football clubs," he told Al Jazeera, adding that he had seen many of the assailants at "extreme right protests" in recent months.

"Some people were shouting about Jews because he has had close relationship with the Jewish community over the years."

Tsakalidis explained that Boutaris fell to the ground after being hit, while attackers threw bottles "and other objects" at him. One assailant proceeded to kick the mayor as he lay on the pavement.

Although a group of police officers were located nearby, Tsakalidis said "none of them intervened" to stop the attack.

At the time of publication, Greek police had not replied to Al Jazeera's request for a comment.

On its website, the neo-fascist Golden Dawn party - which holds 16 seats in the Hellenic Parliament - accused Boutaris of "tarnishing" the commemoration.

In a separate statement, Golden Dawn celebrated the attack as "popular rage", accusing Boutaris of supporting Turkey at a time of rising tensions between Athens and Ankara.

In late January, upwards of 300,000 people rallied in Thessaloniki against negotiations between Athens and Skopje to resolve a decades-long dispute over the name Macedonia.

During that rally, unknown perpetrators spray-painted "Golden Dawn" on Thessaloniki's Holocaust memorial.

Others attacked a pair of anarchist squats in the city, setting one ablaze and badly damaging the building.

On the same day, leaflets accusing Boutaris of being "a slave of the Jews" were passed out and scattered on the pavement in the city centre.

Seraphim Seferiades, a politics professor at the Panteion University in Athens, said far-right violence "is definitely on the rise".

"It's something to be expected because there is a political gap [that the far right] is exploiting, and in that context, it's likely we'll see more violence," he told Al Jazeera.

"It's certainly dangerous," he added.

The attack was roundly condemned by Greek political parties.

Syriza, Greece's ruling left-wing party, described the attackers as "fascists".

"This fascist assault is an attempt to target and intimidate Yiannis Boutaris," Syriza said in a statement released after the incident.

Pasok, a centre-left party, condemned the attack on Boutaris as "embarrassing" and "unacceptable", decrying the "extreme elements" who committed the violence for "tarnish[ing] the day of remembrance".

In a statement published on Saturday night, the centre-right opposition party New Democracy condemned the attack "in the most unambiguous manner".

Saturday's incident is the latest in a string of far-right and xenophobic attacks in Greece, including a slew of assaults targeting refugees, migrant labourers and others across the country.

Earlier this month, police opened an investigation after several headstones were smashed in the Jewish section of the First Cemetery of Athens.

In Lesbos, a Greek island that hosts thousands of asylum seekers, a band of far-right assailants attacked a group of refugees in Mytilene's central square with bottles, Molotov cocktails and stones in late April.

According to Greek police statistics, the number of hate crimes more than doubled last year when compared to 2016, rising from 84 to 184.

In January, a far-right group called Crypteia phoned several civil society groups, including the Muslim Association of Athens, with death threats.

In Thessaloniki, photographer Tsakalidis said Saturday's attack on the mayor was "shocking".

"I'm very ashamed that this situation happened in my city," he concluded.</s>4 charged in Greece over attack on Thessaloniki mayor

THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — Greek authorities charged four men Monday over a weekend mob attack on the 75-year-old mayor of the country's second-largest city, carried out in an apparent venting of nationalist sentiment.

The suspects, aged between 17 and 36, were formally accused of grievous bodily harm and breach of the peace over Saturday's attack on Yiannis Boutaris.

The mayor of Thessaloniki required hospital treatment after being thrown to the ground, kicked and punched by about 12 people during a ceremony honoring Greek victims of mass killings by Turks during World War I.

The trial of the three adults will be held on Wednesday, after their lawyers requested a two-day deferral to better prepare the defense. The 17-year-old will appear before a court for minors, but no trial date has been set for him.

One of the suspects allegedly told police he was angry at a recent statement by Boutaris, a liberal centrist, favoring friendlier relations with Turkey. Another two have apologized, telling police that they were carried away by the behavior of the rest of the crowd.

Prosecutors are also carrying out a separate investigation into whether charges can be brought against so-far unidentified individuals for instigating the attack.</s>THESSALONIKI, Greece — Greek authorities have charged four men over a weekend mob attack on the 75-year-old mayor of the country’s second-largest city, carried out in an apparent venting of nationalist sentiment.

The suspects, aged between 17 and 36, were formally accused of grievous bodily harm and breach of the peace over Saturday’s attack on Yiannis Boutaris.

The mayor of Thessaloniki required hospital treatment after being thrown to the ground, kicked and punched by about 12 people during a ceremony honouring Greek victims of mass killings by Turks during World War I.

The three adults were to be tried later Monday, while the 17-year-old will appear before a court for minors.

One of the suspects allegedly told police he was angry at a recent statement by Boutaris, a liberal centrist, favouring friendlier relations with Turkey.
Mayor Yiannis Boutaris of Greece's second largest city, Thessaloniki, is hospitalized after being assaulted by a group of nationalists at a Greek genocide remembrance event.