Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes denied visa to tour Australia with ‘The Deplorables’

Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes denied visa to tour Australia with ‘The Deplorables’

Exclusive by political reporter Matthew Doran

Photo: Gavin McInnes’s visa was denied on character grounds. (Reuters: Stephanie Keith)

Right-wing provocateur and founder of the Proud Boys group Gavin McInnes has had his visa application blocked by the Home Affairs Department, failing the character test to enter Australia.

Key points:

• Mr McInnes was due in Australia for a speaking tour early next year
• The Federal Government notified him earlier this month it was likely to deny him a visa
• Immigration officials deemed he had failed a “character test” based on extreme views

Critics of Mr McInnes were urging the department and Immigration Minister David Coleman to ban him from travelling to Australia for a speaking tour next year, concerned about his extreme views and promotion of violence.

The ABC understands Mr McInnes was notified a few weeks ago that the department was likely to block his visa application because he was judged to be of bad character, and the formal window for him to appeal closed on Friday.

Mr McInnes cut ties with the Proud Boys group earlier this month. The group, which Mr McInnes has previously labelled a “gang”, describes itself as a men’s organisation, committed to upholding “Western chauvinist values”.

The FBI designated them as an extremist organisation.

On Thursday, a petition of 81,000 signatures was delivered to Federal Parliament calling on the Government to block Mr McInnes from entering the country.

Lawyer Nyadol Nyuon, who founded the petition, said the Government’s decision was a win for free speech.

“To have allowed him to come still I think would have made it seem as if the Government had given tacit approval at the very least to these calls for violence against people you don’t agree with as a legitimate form of free speech,” she said.

“It’s not and it should never be.”

Photo: Melbourne lawyer Nyadol Nyuon organised the petition to have Mr McInnes denied entry to Australia. (ABC News: Greg Nelson)

Ms Nyuon said Mr McInnes could not possibly have met the character test for entry to Australia.

“I’m happy that women, non-whites, certain members of the LGBTI communities don’t have to live in an atmosphere of fear after these individuals are allowed to come in, or from the fear of what that might suggest to them,” she said.

Mr McInnes was due to tour the country early next year, alongside UK far-right activist Tommy Robinson.

The ABC understands no visa application has been received for Mr Robinson.

Photo: Gavin McInnes and Tommy Robinson were due to tour Australia in February 2019. (Supplied: The Deplorables)

Their “The Deplorables” tour of Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and the Gold Coast had already been delayed a number of months.

The Proud Boys list their values as including being against political correctness, racial guilt and racism, while promoting free speech and gun rights.

But they have been widely criticised as promoting violence against people who do not share their views.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for the Department of Home Affairs said all non-citizens entering Australia had to meet character requirements before a visa would be granted.

“For visitors who may hold controversial views, any risk they may pose will be balanced against Australia’s well-established freedom of speech and freedom of beliefs, amongst other relevant considerations,” she said.

Dvir Abramovich, chairman of Australia’s leading civil rights organisation, the Anti-Defamation Commission, issued a statement praising the Government’s decision to reject Mr McInnes’s application.

“I have no doubt that his visit would have cultivated a disruptive atmosphere of incitement as well as attracting hardcore extremists, and this explosive combination could have resulted in rioting and street fights,” Dr Abramovich said.

“This moral decision is a strong affirmation that the noxious rhetoric often spewed by Mr McInnes will never be tolerated in Australia.

“At a time when anti-Semitism and far-right activism in our nation are on the increase, we should not be providing such individuals with an opportunity to promote their divisive and dangerous agenda which runs counter to our core values.”

PHOTO: Video of Gavin McInnes as he inserts a butt plug inside his anus to ‘destroy lib’s’ taunts that he’s a homophobe and by said act apparently, “proving” he doesn’t hate homosexuals.

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French Cartoonist Zeon Arrested for Anti-Zionist Art

French Cartoonist Zeon Arrested for Anti-Zionist Art

In ostensibly free European countries, you can get in a lot of trouble for the wrong kind of humor – not just (deadly) trouble from jihadists “avenging” their prophet, but trouble meted out by government agencies and police officers.

For instance, in the Netherlands, in 2008, the home office of cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot, a poison-pen critic of Islam,

… was raided by a team of ten police officers who had been dispatched by the Openbaar Ministerie, the federal Dutch DA’s office that works in conjunction with the Netherlands Justice Department. The cops confiscated Nekschot’s computer, his sketchbooks, and other materials, then took him to a detention facility where he spent 30 hours in a concrete cell before being released without charges — but after he had been made to promise to remove eight cartoons from his website.

In January of this year, a week after the massacre at Charlie Hebdo, the French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala (above), whose humor dances on the edge of anti-Semitism and sometimes well over it, was arrested on suspicion of

… “incitement of terrorism,” for appearing to offer a [written Facebook] gesture of solidarity with Amedy Coulibaly, the Islamist gunman who murdered four hostages in a kosher grocery store in Paris last Friday, apparently in concert with the terrorists who carried out the massacre at Charlie Hebdo’s offices two days earlier.

Now it’s the turn of a French cartoonist who goes by the name of Zeon. I just learned that one day last week, at 7 a.m., four police officers of the ominously named Brigade de Répression de la Délinquance aux Personnes (BRDP)

… woke the cartoonist to take him before the judge [at] the High Court … of Paris [link added, TF]. A complaint appears to have been filed by the BNVCA (National Bureau of Vigilance against Anti-Semitism).

The complaint focuses on these political drawings:

The judge has indicted the cartoonist [for] incitement to racial, religious hatred, by speech, writing, picture or means of electronic communication. Zeon refused to answer [any] questions. He was set free in late morning.

The Charlie Hebdo cartoons – though often crude and insensitive — didn’t break the law, and it would be hypocritical of the French prosecutors and bien pensants to treat Zeon’s work any differently.

The cartoon with the scale, which Zeon drew in 2009, had been the subject of a legal complaint before, but on that occasion the judge ruled that the statute of limitations had run out. It’s not clear to me why the new complaint would fare any better. Perhaps the goal of the complainant is not to score a legal victory, but to judicially harass the artist.

You don’t have to like the Nekschot, Charlie Hebdo, or Zeon drawings in order to condemn what’s been done to their creators. The fact that all this work is controversial is only more reason to protest the attempts to muzzle these gadflies. People who say uncontroversial things don’t have to rely on free-speech protections; by definition, that valuable shield only benefits those who speak harshly or outrageously.

I would’ve expected the authorities in the land of Voltaire to understand that, and to act accordingly.

Iran Detains 6 Documentary Filmmakers, Activists Say

Iran detains 6 documentary filmmakers, activists say

September 19, 2011|By the CNN Wire Staff

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, pictured on August 26, is being urged to free filmmakers and journalists.

Iran has detained six documentary filmmakers on accusations that they worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Persian service, activists said on Monday.The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran urged authorities to end the “ongoing intimidation and arrest of filmmakers and journalists” and called on diplomats and journalists in New York to press President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his country’s rights record during his reported visit to New York this week.”These arrests prove yet again that President Ahmadinejad and his intelligence apparatus have no tolerance for independent filmmakers and journalists,” Aaron Rhodes, a spokesman for the group, said in a statement.

“If the president expects the international community to respect his right to speak in New York, then he should be forced to explain why filmmakers and media are subject to repression in Iran,” he added.

Citing sources, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said the six documentary filmmakers were detained over the weekend and taken to prison.

It said a pro-government news agency accused the filmmakers of working for BBC Persian and spying for the service.

The BBC said Monday that no one works for the Persian service inside Iran and noted that the arrests came one day after the service broadcast a documentary on Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

The documentary was an in-house production and none of the detained filmmakers worked on it, the BBC reported.

In a news story posted on its website, the BBC quoted its language service chief, Liliane Landor, as saying the arrests are part of the “ongoing efforts by the Iranian government to put pressure on the BBC.”

Also Monday, the Iranian minister of culture and Islamic guidance told the semiofficial Iranian Students’ News Agency that the intelligence ministry is responsible for providing details on the filmmakers’ case.

“BBC Farsi was a major actor in the disturbances during and after the elections,” Seyed Mohammad Hosseini told the agency, referring to the 2009 presidential elections.

“It agitated and guided the people in the hopes to create problems for the country. This is why the representative office of the BBC was shut down in Tehran. Those who are working legally in Iran must now pay close attention and be very careful. We do not plan on supporting a network that engages in anti-Iran activities and works against the interests of the country,” he said.

Related articles

• Iran detains 6 documentary filmmakers, activists say (cnn.com)
• BBC says 6 indie filmmakers detained in Iran (cbc.ca)
• Iran Arrests Filmmakers Accused of Working for BBC (nytimes.com)
• 6 Filmmakers Arrested In Iran, BBC Says (huffingtonpost.com)
• Iran arrests six filmmakers over TV coverage, BBC says (theglobeandmail.com)
• Iran arrests six filmmakers for links to BBC (msnbc.msn.com)

Retarded Pro-Blaspemy Islamists Seek Facebook Censorship

LAHORE – The Lahore High Court Justice Sh Azmat Saeed on Monday ordered ministry of information and technology to block access to all websites in Pakistan especially American social networking website “Facebook”, spreading religious hatred on internet and to submit a compliance report by October 6. The judge, however, made it clear that no search engine including “Google” would be blocked.

The court issued this order while hearing a petition seeking a permanent ban on the access to American social networking website “Facebook” for hosting competition featuring blasphemous caricatures. Muhammad & Ahmad, a public interest litigation firm, through chairman Muhammad Azhar Siddique advocate filed this petition and prayed for a permanent ban on access to Facebook for hosting a fresh blasphemous caricature drawing contest world over under a title “2nd Annual Draw Muhammad Day-May 20, 2011″.

The petitioner pointed out that Islamic values are being derogated in the name of information that is hurting feeling of billions of Muslims. He said despite order of the court, ministry of information technology did not block websites spreading religious hatred.

Petitioner requested that Facebook and all similar websites be permanently blocked or banned in Pakistan for airing, placing, visualizing obscene caricatures of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). The petition aims at stopping unholy drawing contest as well as blocking access to the facebook site in order to save feelings of millions of Muslims from being hurt by the objectionable caricatures which the masters minds of the “2nd Annual Draw Muhammad Day-May 20, 2011 are planning through the dirty contest. He pleaded that due to holding of fresh competition, SHO Civil Lines Police Station be directed to register a criminal case under Section 295-C and other relevant provisions of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) against the perpetrators.

Petitioner has sought directions for the federal government to stop display of material with respect to blasphemy of any religion or Holy Prophet on Facebook and all other such websites in Pakistan. He said the government be directed to establish a permanent authority, having legal status, who would monitor such objectionable activities across the world, so that blasphemy of Holy Prophet should be banned forever, including the holy personalities of all religions.

Source: – http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2011/09/facebook-to-be-blocked/

Related articles

• Pakistan to ban encryption software (guardian.co.uk)
• Pakistan Escalates Its Internet Censorship (censorshipinamerica.com)
• Pakistan Bans Encryption Software (mashable.com)