Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced today the names of 16 people banned from entering the United Kingdom since October. One of the people banned is conservative talk-radio host Michael Savage.
"I think it's important that people understand the sorts of values and sorts of standards that we have here, the fact that it's a privilege to come and the sort of things that mean you won't be welcome in this country," Smith told GMTV.
"Coming to this country is a privilege. If you can't live by the rules that we live by, the standards and the values that we live by, we should exclude you from this country and, what's more, now we will make public those people that we have excluded.
"We are publishing the names of 16 of those that we have excluded since October. We are telling people who they are and why it is we don't want them in this country."
In reference to Savage, Smith said that "this is someone who has fallen into the category of fomenting hatred, of such extreme views and expressing them in such a way that it is actually likely to cause inter-community tension or even violence if that person were allowed into the country."
Others banned include Baptist pastor Fred Waldron Phelps Snr and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper, Hamas MP Yunis Al-Astal, Jewish extremist Mike Guzovsky, former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard Stephen Donald Black, neo-Nazi Erich Gliebe, preachers Wadgy Abd El Hamied Mohamed Ghoneim, Abdullah Qadri Al Ahdal, Safwat Hijazi and Amir Siddique, Muslim activist Abdul Ali Musa (previously Clarence Reams), murderer and Hezbollah terrorist Samir Al Quntar and Kashmiri terror group leader Nasr Javed. Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky, the former leaders of a violent Russian skinhead gang which committed 20 racially motivated murders, are also banned but are currently serving prison terms.
3 comments:
I don't agree with Savage being banned.
However, Savage is no friend of free speech. Despite Savage painting himself as a champion of free speech, he is anything but. He took the organisation CAIR to court to prevent them from using snippets of his show on their website. He lost. However, had Savage prevailed, free speech would have lessened for us all. See:
http://tinyurl.com/27ladx
.
While I do not agree with many of Savage's views, I also do not agree with the UK travel ban. In my view, banning a person for simply being a shock jock is ridiculous. And, it may only serve to increase Savage's popularity worldwide. I read somewhere that international listeners to his talk show via the Internet have exploded.
That's a bit of a stretch, Tony. Not wanting someone to use snippets of your show out of context on their website doesn't mean he's stopping those people from saying what they want with their own words.
People must be pretty uptight to think Savage is on par with hate-speechers and the like. I bet many of those against him don't even listen to his show or have only heard carefully-cut snippets. He's certainly opinionated, but hate speech? Come on.
Just another example of Big Government throwing its weight around. Maybe they'll come after you next.
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