British authorities said Monday they blocked Hasan Piker, a Turkish American online streamer, and another political commentator from entering the U.K. to speak at public events.
Piker, a liberal political commentator who is frequently critical of U.S. President Donald Trump, Israel and the war in Gaza, has 2.8 million followers on Twitch.
The Home Office said that the electronic travel authorization, or ETA, for Piker and Cenk Uygur, who hosts the “Young Turks” online political talk show and is reportedly Piker’s uncle, were canceled “on the grounds that their presence in the U.K. may not be conducive to the public good.”
“Decisions to refuse or cancel an ETA on these grounds are based solely on an assessment of the potential risk an individual may pose to U.K. society,” the Home Office said.
Piker and Uygur were due to speak at SXSW London, a culture, technology and creativity festival, this month. Uygur was also expected to give a speech at the Oxford Union, the prestigious student debating society.
“A sad state of affairs where obviously the interests of Israel take the highest priority,” Piker said on his YouTube channel.
Uygur said on X that he had been banned “for criticizing Israel. Are we free any more?”
Piker has faced criticism over some of his comments on the Hamas militant group, which is considered a terrorist organization in the U.K. and the U.S., among other countries.
Shithole country doing shithole things
Shit hole government doing shit hole things, not in my name. Be careful not to lump all of us in with those other wankers, just because I was born here.
Welcome to being an American on lemmy for the past 2 years, it sucks I know and I’m sorry that your govt is doing stupid shit like this
Even in “democracies”, the general public often has limited agency in the actions of its government. It long ago became obvious to me that the government here (U.S.) does not serve the interests of the average person; we are just livestock to them. The veneer was thin before and is completely gone now.
To be clear, my previous comment was not aimed at you.
Thanks I appreciate it. I think it’s so hard to be lumped in with the same wealthy elites that dominate Western societies currently. It’s so frustrating. They are not me. I am not them. This country is being groomed and exploited by twats.
I’m going to devolve, create my own country. Welcome to Facetopia!!
Their country literally voted to leave the EU, then elected a right wing government.
At some point it stops being a shithole government…
Yep. Every, single, person in this country voted to shoot themselves in the foot, nobody else did anything. We all collectively agreed this would be a good thing /s.
It’s your reductionist, narrow-minded, ignorant response that creates the space for these very actions to take place. Where are you from, at least give me the opportunity to generalise about you too. x
Actually. Why feed the tro…