Islamophobic activist and blogger Pam Geller has been banned from the United Kingdom, according to documents from the country's top law enforcement officer posted on Geller's blog. Geller, along with fellow activist Robert Spencer, had planned to join a rally hosted by the far-right English Defense League, but Home Secretary Theresa May personally decided to exclude Geller under the country's "Unacceptable Behavior policy."
Geller replied in a typically flamboyant fashion:
In a striking blow against freedom, the British government has banned us from entering the country. Muhammad al-Arifi, who has advocated Jew-hatred, wife-beating, and jihad violence, entered the U.K. recently with no difficulty. In not allowing us into the country solely because of our true and accurate statements about Islam, the British government is behaving like a de facto Islamic state. The nation that gave the world the Magna Carta is dead.
The English Defense League is a hugely controversial nativist street protest movement and political organization, whose members have occasionally been filmed giving Nazi salutes and defacing anti-Nazi flags, though leaders made a show of burning a Nazi flag at a press conference in 2009. The group is committed to fighting what they see as the spread of radical Islam, giving them common cause with Geller.
Geller joins conservative radio host Michael Savage, Florida pastor Terry Jones, and rapper Snoop Lion (previously Snoop Dog) on the list of people denied entry to Britain, whose strict laws limit freedom of speech and expression, some legal activists say.
Shares