The rejection of the US visa application for Greek MEP Stelios Kouloglou, while he was a member of an official European Parliament delegation to visit the US, was the subject of a recent article by the French newspaper Humanite.
“The motive? His documentaries on American politics were not liked in Washington,” Humanite notes in the report, according to a statement by the Greek MEP.
“From 2010, I had found myself on a blacklist,” explains Stelios Kouloglou. The MEP, as the newspaper writes,” is not only a member of the European Parliament but also a journalist and director who for many years worked for Greek public television ERT. During the decade of 2000-2010, he became known for his reports and documentaries from around the world that appeared in the weekly program Reporters Without Borders on ERT, some of which were directly critical of American politics.
Stelios Kouloglou, Humanite continues, “refers specifically to a 2004 documentary “24 + 1 Lies to Sell a War,” which denounced the Bush administration’s propaganda to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Also, he referred to another film entitled “Confession of an Economic Assassin,” which was distinguished with two international awards and was screened in New York and Los Angeles.
During this time, the US Embassy in Athens protested to the Greek government, “that intervened on the board of ERT to say that Stelios Kouloglou’s reports have caused difficulties in the talks of the then prime minister, Costas Simitis, with the US. In 2008, the situation escalated at a meeting of the board of directors of public television. “A month later, I was fired,” says the MEP,” the newspaper notes.
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Source: newgreektv.com
