Hollywood actor Morgan Freeman is among almost 1,000 US citizens permanently banned from entering Russia, the Independent reports.
Russia's foreign ministry on Saturday released a list of 963 American citizens who are barred from travelling to the country over their support of US-imposed “anti-Russian sanctions” following the invasion of Ukraine. US president Joe Biden, vice president Kamala Harris, journalists, Freeman and fellow film-maker Rob Reiner are all named on the so-called "stop list".
The ministry said: “In the context of response to the constantly imposed anti-Russian sanctions by the United States and in connection with incoming requests about the personal composition of our national ‘stop list’, the Russian Foreign Ministry publishes a list of American citizens who are permanently banned from entering the Russian Federation.”
Freeman's inclusion follows the 2017 recording of a video message Russia said accused it "of conspiring against the United States and calling for a fight against our country”. The Oscar-winning actor narrated a PSA for the Committee to Investigate Russia, which aimed to raise awareness on claims of Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
Freeman said in the PSA: “We have been attacked. We are at war. Imagine this movie script: a former KGB spy, angry at the collapse of his motherland, plots a course for revenge. Taking advantage of the chaos, he works his way up through the ranks of a post-Soviet Russia and becomes president. He establishes an authoritarian regime, then he sets his sights on his sworn enemy: the United States.”
A Few Good Men director Reiner, founder of the Committee, was named as “one of the creators of the Internet resource Investigate Russia (investigaterussia.com)”.
Other high-profile names on the list include US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi, Texas senator Ted Cruz, Democrat House representative Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez, president Joe Biden’s son Hunter, Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, ABC News’s George Stephanopoulous and a number of US senators who have now died, including John McCain, Harry M Reid and Orrin G Hatch.
The report noted former president Donald Trump does not appear, but the list does include former vice president Mike Pence. The “black list” reportedly includes US citizens from “all walks of life”, including an LGBT+ activist, rabbis and a Yale University professor.
For more stories from where you live, visit InYourArea.
