Greek police fired tear gas on hundreds of protestors yesterday to break up clashes in central Athens between rival groups for and against immigration, a police official said.

Riot police stood between around 1,000 anti-racist demonstrators and immigrants and some 300 anti-immigration and neo-Nazi activists who had camped out in the working-class Aghio Panteleimon district, the official said.

Hundreds of police were deployed early yesterday in the area where the anti-racist campaigners were prevented from staging a concert following their rally due to the presence of the neo-Nazis.

Carrying banners reading ‘Kick out the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the EU (European Union), not migrants’, and ‘No to racist attacks’, the anti-racist protesters were objecting a government plan to close a section of Greece’s frontier with Turkey, from where many illegal immigrants cross over.

Located at the edge of the European Union and lacking a coherent immigration policy for years, Greece has become the main entry-point for irregular migration in Europe.

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