An Australian tour by a European MP belonging to the ultra-nationalist Greek party, Golden Dawn, has been cancelled after the former soldier struggled to secure a visa.
Guardian Australia reported on Monday that Georgios Epitideios, who was elected to the Brussels parliament in May, planned to visit Australia this weekend to raise money and meet local supporters.
But Golden Dawn’s Australian representative, Ignatius Gavrilidis, said the tour had been abandoned after Epitideios, a former lieutenant-general in the Greek army, was “given the runaround” by the immigration department.
“They weren’t issuing him a visa, he was given one form after another, had to answer a million and one questions,” Gavrilidis said. “They didn’t reject him, but they just gave him grief, and he got the point.”
Epitideios had been scheduled to speak at a conference in Sydney on Sunday evening along with Gavrilidis and Michalis Giannagkonas, a senior party organiser whose visa request had been granted.
People had been travelling from around the country to Sydney to hear the European MP speak, Gavrilidis said.
“It makes me ashamed to be called Australian,” he said. “They don’t like the truth, people don’t like the truth. There’s fear, obviously.”
The visit had been slammed by local members of the Greek and Jewish communities. Labor MP Michael Danby told Guardian Australia he had written to the immigration minister, Scott Morrison, asking that Epitideios not be allowed into the country.
Golden Dawn’s entire Greek parliamentary cohort was arrested last year and is awaiting trial in Athens on charges ranging from murder, weapons offenses and assaults on migrant workers.
