As reported earlier this week, George Galloway's disgusting support for Hamas - he boasts about financing a group most Western countries have rightly designated as terrorist - has got him banned from Canada. The AFP reported at the time:
"Galloway said he personally would be donating three cars and 25,000 pounds (35,000 dollars) to Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya as he dared the West to try to prosecute him for aiding what it considers a terror group."
There are also other grounds for Canada's ban, such as his calling for a coup against the Egyptian government:
"So I call, in conclusion, on the great people of Egypt, on the heroic armed forces of Egypt, and the heroic army of Egypt of 1973, to rise up and sweep away this tyrant Mubarak."
Given the conditions set down in Canada's Immigration Act, reported in the Guardian, that's pretty clearly the kind of breach that makes Galloway inadmissable. The Canadian Government refused to make an exception for someone who had breached rules designed to protect Canadians' security.
That is why this is so different to the case of Geert Wilders. In that case, the Government actively stepped in because the "Secretary of State is satisfied that your statements about Muslims and their beliefs, as expressed in your film Fitna and elsewhere would threaten community harmony and therefore public security in the UK". That case was about freedom of speech. Mr. Wilders was banned not because he was inciting or commiting violence, however objectionable his positions there is no allegation he has done anything of the sort. It also doesn't really make sense to suppose that he posed a public order threat because his supporters might go on the rampage; he was set to speak in the fairly civil House of Lords. He was banned because his opponents do not respect his right to freely express his views and might cause trouble as a result, the British Government cravenly gave official support to their attempts at censorship.
Galloway's facile case that he too is being censored is undermined further by the fact that he supported the ban on Geert Wilders entering the UK:
That is why this is so different to the case of Geert Wilders. In that case, the Government actively stepped in because the "Secretary of State is satisfied that your statements about Muslims and their beliefs, as expressed in your film Fitna and elsewhere would threaten community harmony and therefore public security in the UK". That case was about freedom of speech. Mr. Wilders was banned not because he was inciting or commiting violence, however objectionable his positions there is no allegation he has done anything of the sort. It also doesn't really make sense to suppose that he posed a public order threat because his supporters might go on the rampage; he was set to speak in the fairly civil House of Lords. He was banned because his opponents do not respect his right to freely express his views and might cause trouble as a result, the British Government cravenly gave official support to their attempts at censorship.
Galloway's facile case that he too is being censored is undermined further by the fact that he supported the ban on Geert Wilders entering the UK:
Even if this case was about freedom of speech, which it isn't, it would be hard to feel sorry for Galloway when he is so utterly hypocritical. As it is, it's hard to disagree with the Canadian assessment that they are absolutely right to refuse to admit an "infandous street-corner Cromwell" and if Canada's security agencies "have advanced notice that Mr Galloway is going to come to Canada to pee on [their] carpet, [they] should deny him entry to the home." Alykhan Velshi, spokesman for the Canadian immigration minister, defends the decision in an interview with Channel 4 here:
