Right-wing activists attacked on Saturday the mayor of Thessaloniki, Yiannis Boutaris, who had to be hospitalized with various injuries. Boutaris, 75, is mayor of the second city of Greece since 2011. Police said Sunday that he has managed to arrest five of his attackers (four Greeks and one Georgian) and it seems he has identified the others. The gang urged Boutaris to abandon the act he participated in on Saturday afternoon commemorating the Genocide of the Pondic Greeks, the Greek population that lived in the region of the Pondos, southeast of the Black Sea during the Ottoman Empire. The persecutions and massacres that occurred at the beginning of the 20th century (during the First World War and the war between Turkey and Greece) caused the death of some 360,000 people, including children and although this genocide has not been recognized internationally, in Greece the date with different acts. Boutaris is known for his anti-nationalist stance.
