Free speech activists condemn UK entry ban for two leftwing US commentators

Hasan Piker said the UK had revoked his visa. Photograph: Philip Cheung/The Guardian View image in fullscreen Hasan Piker said the UK had revoked his visa. Photograph: Philip Cheung/The Guardian Free speech activists condemn UK entry ban for two leftwing US commentators Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker, who have both been accused of propagating antisemitism, barred from visiting for event The UK is failing to protect freedom of speech, prominent activists have said, after the government banned two leftwing US political commentators from entering the country to attend speaking engagements. Cenk Uygur, the host of the Young Turks online political talkshow, and Hasan Piker, who runs his own hours-long stream each day, were both due to appear at SXSW London, while the former said he had also been due to speak at an event run by University of Oxford students. The Home Office said the two men had their electronic travel authorisations (ETA) cancelled because their presence in the UK “may not be conducive to the public good”. Uygur has been accused of propagating antisemitic tropes in his criticism of Israel. He has insisted that his criticisms are confined to an analysis of Israeli influence over US policymaking, saying on Monday: “The mighty United Kingdom is afraid of speech that shows you who’s responsible for … war crimes. But no amount of censorship will get us to stop telling the truth.” View image in fullscreen Cenk Uygur, host of the Young Turks talkshow. Photograph: YouTube Piker has faced a backlash over some of his comments – including reportedly saying on a 2019 stream that “America deserved 9/11”, a comment he later apologised for and said was “inappropriate”. He has stood by his characterisation of Hamas as “1,000 times better” than Israel, and his claim that he “would vote for Hamas over Israel every single time”, in an episode of Pod Save America, the podcast hosted by former staffers for Barack Obama. Piker has said he is not antisemitic, but anti-Israel. The bans prompted Jemimah Steinfeld, chief executive of the Index on Censorship, to claim the government had overseen a “worrying escalation”. Akiko Hart, the director of Liberty, called on the government to be transparent about its rationale for issuing bans. Steinfeld said she was not downplaying the harmful effects of some of the people recently banned from entering the UK, noting that the Jewish community was feeling particularly besieged. But she expressed concern that banning people who had been invited to speak “makes access to the UK a taste-test based on the current government’s determination of what is in the public good”. She said: “It’s paternalistic and assumes we are just passive consumers of views rather than people who can think, judge and challenge. It confers an underdog status to the people not allowed to enter, it could embolden other countries to follow suit and it feels fairly meaningless in the internet age where people can simply go online to hear what they have to s