Pavlos Fyssas, a 34-year-old rap artist and anti-fascist known commonly as “KillahP,” was stabbed to death in late September in the western Athens district of Keratsini. The 45-year-old murderer was arrested on site and confessed to the act while claiming to be a member of the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn.

The event triggered a widespread investigation into 32 cases of murders, stabbings, use of force against immigrants, communists or homosexuals, and other felonies and misdemeanors allegedly perpetrated in the name of the party over the last two years. The Athens district attorney is attempting to connect the cases in order to declare the party a criminal organization. The anti-terrorist force of the police (who have themselves in many cases supported and contributed to the group's efforts) and the National Information Agency are also assisting the investigation.

On September 28, six parliamentarians, among them Golden Dawn's leader, Nikos Michaloliakos, were arrested on felony charges, and three were imprisoned for involvement in group whose origins go back to 1987. Weekly in Greece, a new avalanche of information is published as more witnesses reveal information about the structure of the organization, its Nazi beliefs and even details about its arsenal of weapons. An investigation into one of the party's ministers of parliament, Christos Pappas, concluded that he had set up pictures of himself with Nazi emblems.

Golden Dawn was a marginal party until 2009, winning only 0.3 percent of the vote in that year's elections. But events over the past four years have seen the party grow in popularity and strength, garnering more than 10 percent of the votes in Greece's last general election.

Why party members support the anti-immigration and ethnically “pure” platform remain confounding in modern Greek politics, though it is a key window into better understanding the direction the country is heading particularly vis-à-vis immigration. “I don't care about what they do. I cannot forget that neighborhoods, unapproachable to Greeks and famous for criminal activity, are now silent as churches," one Golden Dawn party member told Occupy.com.

"Probably I am not 100 percent in agreement with the means, but I surely like the result. At least they are the only ones to do something, when no one else is reacting."

As for the future of democratic rule in the crisis-stricken country, he added: “We don't share the same views on democracy. What we lived the last ten years was a junta. We were ruled by thieves and criminals, people who sold our country, our values, our properties. We now have to wake up, try something new and whatever happens, happens. There is no war without blood."

With the rise in anti-immigrant violence, many more Golden Dawn members are starting to speak out against the brutality, despite the party’s inherent acceptance, and encouragement, of violent acts toward those who are perceived as "non-Greeks."

“I am not saying to go in the streets and kill each other," the anonymous party member continued. "But it is clear that the people in the last governments do not want change. We have to force the change. Remember that [during] the years of the dictatorship we couldn't go out at nights because of the restrictions, so now it's the same: we cannot go out because we are going to get mugged or raped.”

Golden Dawn members openly express the view, which is gaining popularity, that Greece is now run as a dictatorship despite the fact that Greeks are allowed to vote for their government in a multi-party electoral system. In a party demonstration following the imprisonment of some of its members, the slogan ran, “Your junta began in 1973,” alluding to 30 years ago when Greece's democracy was restored after a seven-year military junta.

Yet even now — with more proof than ever that Golden Dawn is a neo-Nazi organization using neo-Nazi methods; with magazines publishing racism and hate, and pictures of members saluting like Nazis holding the Swastika, and the documented facts that they are killing political opponents —Golden Dawn members are rejecting the characterization of their party as neo-Nazi.

“In my opinion they are not neo-Nazis, they are not fascists. They are Greek nationalists," is how the Golden Dawn member described it in conversation with Occupy.com. "I cannot find someone [else] worthy to vote for. Everyone else is thinking how to [enter] government in order to steal our money. Even now they are governing with no respect for the constitution.

"I don't like killing people. If they did that, it was wrong. But I still think that they are not a problem for the system, but a solution to it,” he said.

Golden Dawn gained power after the Indignados movement of 2011 and 2012, and took advantage of people who were generally upset about the political system and governing parties. A large number of people at the time were singing slogans like, “Put this brothel parliament on fire!” In that spirit, the Golden Dawn platform offered many what they wanted to hear: attacks against corrupt MPs and ridicule of Parliament.

But the group is careful not to attack everyone. There are no attacks by neo-Nazis, for example, on the politicians who led the country into crisis, nor explicitly against the corrupt businessmen and lobbyists who benefited and who continue to benefit from the debt disaster. The party's relationship with the traditional right are not so bad, either. There were MPs of the conservative New Democracy party calling Golden Dawn their “sister party."

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has also markedly adopted the extreme right's agenda in an effort to cater to more voters, further blurring the political lines. In an interview with Nikos Chatzinikolaou before last year's elections, Samaras stated: “In the local pre-school, children are accepted according to income. Pre-schools are full of migrants and a Greek cannot send his kids there. This must stop. There are some things that annoy me as they annoy you, and we should not anymore call it racism.”

After the elections, the New Democracy party failed for several months to prepare a bill combating racism; it even ignored the European Union's directive on the issue. Still, extreme right voices in the conservative party combined with an unwillingness in the mainstream to challenge the neo-Nazis are not the major reason of the extremists’ growth. Efthimia Christodoulopoulou, a teacher out protesting in recent days against huge budget cuts that are slashing education, explained:

“The financially and socially lower classes are feeling that they are threatened by the migrants taking their jobs. Golden Dawn employs a huge propaganda against the migrants: their rights on health care, education and jobs. Why should we pay for them? We didn't invite them here, we want them out of our country. None of them are legal. Just some of the party's arguments are against migrants.”

It's no coincidence, then, that Golden Dawn has risen as the financial and jobs crisis in Greece has gotten worse. Unemployment in Greece exceeded 25 percent last month. Among people younger than 30, the percentage now hovers around 65 percent.

Recent research among Golden Dawn supporters shows that the debt crisis, financial exclusion and a demand for justice were principal reasons people chose for voting in the neo-Nazis. Immigration and criminality were the other main reasons cited; almost no one, however, admitted voting for the party because of its leader or individual members.

“There are not only uneducated people with no knowledge about history and politics voting for the Golden Dawn," added the teacher Efthimia. "There are even academics and intellectuals who publicly supported the neo-Nazis. In most of the cases they just agree with the ideology and the actions of the party. They deeply believe that as Greeks they are superior to the migrants.”

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