Banning EDL fans Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer also means the Boat Race streaker and honest Jews are refused entry to Britain
WHO gets into the UK? Pamela Geller (above) and Robert Spencer have been from entering Britain to speak at an EDL rally.
Home Secretary Theresa May has told Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, both of the anti-Islamic group Stop Islamization of America, that their presence in the UK would “not be conducive to the public good”.
Their names are added to the list of not wanted persion that includes anti-Islam polemicist Michael Savage and the faith healer Todd Bentley.
Oh, and the Australian Trenton Oldfield whop disrupted the Boat Race by jumping into the River Thames. He’s lived in the UK for ten years and never claimed a penny in benefits nor put a foot wrong. That “public good” is a woolly catch all.
But Geller and Spencer are nasties. Barthes notes:
Their allies include Babu Suseelan, a Hindu militant who claims that Muslims “breed like rats” but that Islam can be “wiped out”, and it was only bad publicly that prompted the two to cut links with John Joseph Jay, a man who openly called for violence against Muslims and others.
The Government has decreed that people with “unacceptable” thoughts and opinions are banned. IUt might be better to shine a harsh light on them. Let them talk and debate their prejudices.
Natalie Rothschild wrote:
…ultimately, it is impossible to ban words, thoughts and opinions out of existence. However, as May and Smith before her have demonstrated, it is possible for governments from across the political spectrum to take it upon themselves to decide for the British people what they can or cannot say and listen to. So much for the Lib-Cons’ heralded repeal of New Labour’s assault on liberty
Matthew Collins, a spokesman for Hope not Hate, which led a campaign to ban the pair, is quoted in the Indy:
“There is a line in the sand between freedom of speech and the right to use hate speech. Freedom of speech does not guarantee you that right. We live in a democracy and we believe in free speech. People will now quote Voltaire but he never had the benefit of going to the gates of Auschwitz and seeing where unfettered free speech ends up.”
But earlier in the year, HNH’s Nick Lowles stated:
“There’s been a long history in the anti-fascist movement of “no platform”, but a lot of those principles have become outdated, because of new technology, people have a platform online.
“I’m not going to sign up to a Twitter debate with Griffin, that’s beyond the pale. But at the same time we need to do more to take on their ideas in the blogosphere, there are ideas are out there in swathes. Or we sit on the sidelines, condemn them, and refuse to engage, that’s when we look like the pro-censorship group.
“The more controversial things they say, the more attention they get. It’s actually easier with people like Nick Griffin and David Irving. But there’s mainstream hatred of Muslims all over Twitter. We have to be in the argument, expose their ideas. “
But that has changed.
The HNH petition went:
‘We believe in freedom of speech and the rights of people to hold and express different views. However, in a democracy there have to be limits on people abusing these freedoms to incite hatred, and we believe that Geller and Spencer are seeking to do just that.’
Patrick Hayes finds that odd:
In the strange minds of HNH campaigners, it seems you can believe in free speech yet lobby to ban individuals from entering your country to speak freely. You can believe in the right of people to hold and express different views, except views you personally dislike. And you can do all this in the name of democracy, presumably because the UK public itself, the demos, is so volatile and manipulable that it has to be sheltered from the poisonous views of Geller and Spencer…
The EDL, of course, has no licence to play the free-speech card. It makes no bones about calling upon the state to outlaw the speech of ‘extreme’ Muslim preachers and it wants to ban poppy-burning protests. And neither can it plead an open-borders case for allowing its speakers to come to Britain: it routinely calls for the forced deportation of radical Islamists from the UK. But that is what you would expect from a nationalist organisation of the far right. Is it also now what we should expect from British liberals?
So. To the story of a Kansas Jew student denied entry into the United Kingdom late last month.
The KCJC reports:
After being detained for more than nine hours, he was put back on a plane to the United States by customs officials. During that time he was never told why he was being denied entry. He was told his photo and fingerprints have now been placed in a database that will make it difficult for him to obtain entry into the U.K. or any other E.U. country.
The U.K. man who had offered Louis “Chip” Cantor summer work experience and is not Jewish, Kevin Shilling, said the U.K. Border Agency agent he spoke to in his attempt to get Cantor admitted into the country made more than one anti-Semitic comment to him during the telephone conversation they had.
Chip Cantor told his story to two local television stations last week. On Tuesday, June 4, the 23-year-old student told KMBC he was traveling to the U.K. to visit and gain summer work experience and to participate in a fundraiser for a child who has cancer. He left Kansas City on Wednesday, May 29, on an early-morning flight and waited in line to go through customs after landing in the country after 10 p.m. London time. When he got to the front of the line, a female customs agent began looking at his passport and treated him courteously. The routine exercise ended when she noticed the two pages in his passport with Israeli visas.
“I spent my freshman year studying abroad in Israel,” he said.
Cantor is no longer speaking publicly about the incident.
“I am feeling ‘publicized out’ at the moment,” he commented via email.
In the same email, Chip wrote that he never really wanted to tell his story publicly.
“My only real goal with this fiasco is to get my fingerprints and picture removed from their database and the blacked out stamp in my passport removed as well,” he said.
…
Chip’s father Chuck Cantor said his son told him the female customs agent — who for some reason was not dressed in a customs uniform — was very pleasant toward him until she saw the Israel stamps in his passport. Then she simply walked away with his passport without speaking a word to him. Chip told his father he estimates she was gone 45 minutes to an hour. He never saw her again.
…
Finally, according to Chuck, a different, uniformed customs agent came to see him. Chip was told they were taking his bags and detaining him for questioning. He was not told why…
“At some point a woman who was wearing a burka came to the cell to photograph him,” Chuck said. At that point he was fingerprinted as well.
A burka?
….
Chuck asked to speak directly to the customs agent and was connected with Philip G. Yeomans…
After Chuck spoke to Yeomans, he contacted Shilling in the U.K. for assistance. It was about 3 a.m. U.K. time. Shilling called Yeomans.
Shilling noted the conversation didn’t accomplish anything. Several times, however, Yeomans made anti-Semitic comments to Shilling. At one point, when Shilling was explaining the reason Chip was in the country, the customs agent told Shilling that Chip should have lied to the customs agent, adding, “A Jewish kid would find that easy,” Shilling reported.
Yeomans the custom agent also told Shilling any additional attempts to aid Cantor would be useless and “the little Jew will be on his way back to his rich daddy,” in a matter of hours.
Chuck Cantor said during the time Chip was in detention, he was given only a half of a sandwich and very little water. When Chip asked for more food and water over several hours, he was alternately denied, told to “stop pestering” them, and told he could have water “only if you say please.”
In the morning, Chip was escorted to the plane by another customs agent for a flight back to the United States. At this time Chip asked the agent for his passport and was refused.
Shilling, Chip’s would-be employer in the U.K., is helping the Cantors try to clear the young man’s name there. When contacted by The Chronicle Shilling said, “I’m really so sorry for Chip and the way he was treated. I want to reassure all your readers that if they plan a visit to the U.K., once they get past the U.K. Border Agency they will find friendly, welcoming people, without prejudice.”
Wow.
Posted: 3rd, July 2013 | In: Reviews Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink
