The Greek government said it will seek to ban the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party after it was linked to the murder of Pavlos Fyssas, a prominent anti-fascist hip-hop musician in Athens.
He was fatally stabbed by a 45-year-old truck driver who confessed to being a member of Golden Dawn.
The crime has shocked Greece with thousands of people participating in a protest march on Thursday.
Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras vowed to keep Nazism from “poisoning” the country’s life.
In a televised address, he declared: "This government is determined not to allow the descendants of the Nazis to poison our social life, to commit crimes, terrorise and undermine the foundations of the country that gave birth to democracy."
The Greek liberal newspaper Kathimerini wrote in an editorial that there must be zero tolerance to the criminal activity of the Golden Dawn.
"The cold-blooded murder of a citizen by a Golden Dawn supporter must awaken everyone," it said.
The centre-left daily Ethnos urged Greece's mainstream parties to resist "the monster of Nazism".
Greek Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias said the government would table emergency legislation that would seek to outlaw the group.
The new law would re-evaluate what constituted a criminal gang, he said. "Neither the state will tolerate, nor society accept, acts and practices that undermine the legal system," he told reporters, adding that the attack showed "in the clearest way the party's intentions".
Chryssi Avgi (Golden Dawn), whose senior members have expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler, sent shockwaves through Europe when it won nearly 7 percent of the vote and 18 seats in the 300-member Greek parliament in 2012 general elections. It was the first time that the extreme-right has been represented since the end of Greece's military junta in 1974.
It was a meteoric rise for the previously marginal party that rode on a wave of anger against harsh austerity measures imposed as a result of Greece’s deep financial crisis.
Opinion polls show the party’s popularity has since increased to 12 percent. Local elections are due to be held next year.
Jewish groups have repeatedly called on Greece to ban political parties such as the Golden Dawn movement, ‘’which pose a serious danger to liberal democracy”.
Party leader Nikos Michaloliakos has declared there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz and has questioned the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust
"Golden Dawn party leaders are openly anti-Semitic, racist, have denied the Holocaust, and its members have reportedly targeted dark-skinned individuals in Greece through various violent acts," said Abraham H. Foxman, National Director or the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
"Its doctrine echoes Nazi principles by proposing that “only men and women of Greek descent and consciousness should have full political rights,” and the party recently held a blood drive to collect blood “only for Hellenes,” i.e. ethnic Greeks.