The new face of Greece’s hard right has called for a border wall along Greece’s northern frontiers to block illegal migrants.
Kyriakos Velopoulos, 53, founder of the new Greek Solution party – which won a seat in Brussels on Sunday – suggested laying a minefield and building a wall on the border with Turkey and expressed support for “an air tight zone” along the Evros river, a natural frontier with Turkey and Bulgaria
“The Pakistan or Afghan national sneaking into Greece isn’t a refugee,” Mr Velopoulos said yesterday on Skai TV, an Athens-based network. “He is an illegal intruder and I want to erect a 6m tall wall along the river to stop him from entering.”
A television host who gained prominence by marketing religious paraphernalia and letters from Jesus on his late-night talkshow, Mr Velopoulos has frequently lavished praise on Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister and one of Europe’s leading nationalists, disregarding growing western concern about his close ties with Russia.
“I support Orban and I, too, want a Christian Europe,” Mr Velopoulos said in the interview. “I do not care whether my rhetoric comes across as more extreme than Golden Dawn,” he added, referring to the Greek neo-Nazi party. “But just like Orban and [Italy’s Matteo] Salvini, I want to protect and safeguard my home. Greece has gone bankrupt and rather than be feeding our own we are tending to the needs of these intruders.”
Source: The Times
