A greek judge ordered this morning that the award-winning Greek journalist and publisher Kostas Vaxevanis be arrested, after he published a revelatory article in his weekly newspaper «Documento» about MS Stavroula Nikolopoulou-Stournara, Bank of Greece Governor’s Yannis Stournaras spouse, receiving state money for medical conferences without a public tender, her relations with pharmaceutical industries, and Mr Stournaras presence in these conferences as a lecturer.
Mr Vaxevanis statement:
MS Stavroula Nikolopoulou-Stournara, Bank of Greece Governor’s Yannis Stournaras spouse, obviously representing the «family interests» that are described in «Documento» newspaper”s last issue (9 April, 2017) sued me demanding my immediate arrest.
It seems that the Stournara family has ties with Greek former Minister of Finance Yannos Papantoniou, not only via contiguous plots of land, friendship and cohabitation in the domes of power, but also via similar practices.
Our newspaper «Documento» reported that Yannis Stournaras follows the cheap method of «lecturing» at conferences organized by his spouse and sponsored by pharmaceutical industries, without honoring his institutional role or keeping up appearances. Mr Stournaras did not even give an answer about the disclosures.
Instead, the family decided to sue me and chose the violent path of arrest.
Thus they try to achieve two goals. First, to cover themselves in the eyes of the public and of the European institutions that supervise them. Secondly, they aim to scare me. They cannot even think that hands can touch them, they consider themselves as permanent power bodies, they take for granted that their personal interests are the interests of Greece.
No matter what methods they use, Mr and Mrs Stournaras will have to answer about:
– the 400.000 euros Mrs Stavroula Nikolopoulou-Stournara received from the Hellenic Center for Disease Control & Prevention (HCDCP) when Minister of Health was Adonis Georgiadis (2013 – 2014), without a public tender for her «conferences»
– the scientific «credibility» of these conferences, where professors with ties to Novartis industry were taking part.
– the fact that Mr Stournaras lectures about pharmaceutical expenditure in Greece on the basis that, among all public expenditures in this unlucky country, he believes that only the pharmaceutical market in Greece is small and should augment.
– the «market researches» conducted by family businesses on a mandate from pharmaceutical industries and by paying money to doctors.
The Stournaras family does not struggle in a legal battle, as it pretends. Mr and Mrs Stournaras struggle for their survival. They try to cover the way they act and operate.
I ask for your support, always having in mind what George Orwell once said : «Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. The rest is public relations»
Kostas Vaxevanis,
Greek journalist, publisher and editor of the «Documento» weekly newspaper and «Hot Doc» magazine.
Athens, Monday 10th 2017
