At the Athens Court of First Instance Prosecutor's Office today were the head of New Left, Gavriil Sakellaridis, and the party's MPs, Peti Perka and Thodoris Dritsas, in order to file a lawsuit against the president of Greek Solution, Kyriakos Velopoulos. The lawsuit is also signed by New Left MPs, Sia Anagnostopoulou and Euclid Tsakalotos.
The lawsuit concerns incitement to violence based on what the anti-racism law stipulates and specifically Article 1 of Law 927/79, as amended by Law 4285/2014.
On June 10, 2026, during an interview on the OPEN television station, Kyriakos Velopoulos was asked whether “do you sink it or do you not sink the boat” that carries migrants and refugees in the Aegean. The president of Greek Solution had replied directly “you sink it”, while later in the discussion he repeated that specific exhortation, even showing indifference to the illegality of such an act.
Based on the reasoning of the lawsuit by the head of New Left and its four MPs, Kyriakos Velopoulos “urged the competent organs of the state, but also every private individual, to proceed to acts of a felonious nature (sinking a boat, that is causing a shipwreck with the certain result of the death of persons) against persons with the sole criterion of their race and national origin, namely the fact that they are citizens of third countries that are not members of the European Union”.
Many weeks passed after Velopoulos's statements, but there was no action by any judicial authority in order for him to be prosecuted for his racist statements, with which he was calling for violence against vulnerable migrants and refugees.
With today's lawsuit, New Left is undertaking this specific initiative with the aim of putting a stop to the hateful and racist statements of far-right political figures. It is an action that falls within the framework of the multifaceted struggle - political and legal - that society and the Left must wage against the Far Right, the announcement concludes.