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"Coming to this country is a privilege. If you can't live by the rules that we live by, the standards and the values that we live by, we should exclude you from this country and, what's more, now we will make public those people that we have excluded..."- UK Home Secretary Jacqui "O'Brien" Smith

Sixteen people banned from entering the UK were "named and shamed" by the Home Office today.


Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she decided to make public the names of 16 people banned since October so others could better understand what sort of behaviour Britain was not prepared to tolerate.

The list includes hate preachers, anti-gay protesters and a far- right US talk show host...

..."We are publishing the names of 16 of those that we have excluded since October. We are telling people who they are and why it is we don't want them in this country."

She said the number of people excluded from Britain had risen from an average of two a month to five a month since October.


The list of the 16 "least wanted" includes radio talk show host Michael Savage, real name Michael Weiner.

"This is someone who has fallen into the category of fomenting hatred, of such extreme views and expressing them in such a way that it is actually likely to cause inter-community tension or even violence if that person were allowed into the country," Ms Smith told BBC Breakfast.

Also named are American Baptist pastor Fred Waldron Phelps Snr and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper, who have picketed the funerals of Aids victims and claimed the deaths of US soldiers are a punishment for US tolerance of homosexuality.

"If people have so clearly overstepped the mark in terms of the way not just that they are talking but the sort of attitudes that they are expressing to the extent that we think that this is likely to cause or have the potential to cause violence or inter-community tension in this country, then actually I think the right thing is not to let them into the country in the first place. Not to open the stable door then try to close it later," Ms Smith said.

"It's a privilege to come to this country. There are certain behaviours that mean you forfeit that privilege."

Hamas MP Yunis Al-Astal, Jewish extremist Mike Guzovsky, former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard Stephen Donald Black and neo-Nazi Erich Gliebe are also on the list released today.

Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky, the former leaders of a violent Russian skinhead gang which committed 20 racially motivated murders, are also banned from coming to Britain. Both are currently in prison.

Making up the rest of the 16 named by the Home Office today are preachers Wadgy Abd El Hamied Mohamed Ghoneim, Abdullah Qadri Al Ahdal, Safwat Hijazi and Amir Siddique, Muslim activist Abdul Ali Musa (previously Clarence Reams), murderer and Hezbollah terrorist Samir Al Quntar and Kashmiri terror group leader Nasr Javed.

Savage told The Chronicle in an exclusive interview this morning that he was shocked to learn the news that he was included in the British government's first-ever list of nearly two dozen people from across the globe who are banned from entering the nation for allegedly fostering extremism or hatred.

"When I woke up and saw this this morning ... my first thought was, damn, there goes the summer trip where I planned to have my dental work done," the "Savage Nation" host joked. "My second thought was, darn ... there goes my visit to the restaurants of England for their great cuisine."

But, he added, the issue is no laughing matter -- and represents a serious threat to free speech.

"Today it's me. Tomorrow it's someone else," he said. "My first reaction is, this can't be happening ... that the land of the Magna Carta has now become the land of the mini-Carta."...

...Savage told The Chronicle that being included in such a crowd is no laughing matter -- and he is now preparing legal action against Smith, he said.

"This lunatic ... is linking me up with Nazi skinheads who are killing people in Russia, she's putting me in a league with Hamas murderers who kill Jews on busses," he said. "I have never advocated violence ... I've been on the air 15 years. My views may be inflammatory, but they're not violent in any way."

He said he has been defamed and endangered by the British government action. "She has painted a target on my back, linking me with people who are in prison for killing people," he said. "Does she not think people might hunt me down?"

Savage said he has had no contact with the British government or with Smith's office and has no idea how he ended up on the British Home secretary's list.

And he said he is working with attorneys and supporters who have called from around the world in an effort to find out.

"Is it the government's investigation? Who did this? If she didn't draw it up, who did?" he said.

But he said that even liberals should be disturbed at the move by the British government taken this week because they should wonder "who's next?"

"All I've done is expressing strong political opinions that happen to be quite patriotic to a large generation of Americans. They're not really out of the mainstream with most of America. Yeah, they're out of the mainstream with San Francisco and Los Angeles," he said.

TwinTownBisonFan wrote:already posted elsewhere T

Subject: Favorite talking head?

hank scorpio wrote:Are we still not allowing Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) into the U.S.?

hank scorpio wrote:Are we still not allowing Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) into the U.S.?

On 21 September 2004, Yusuf Islam was travelling on a United Airlines flight from London to Washington, en route to a meeting with singer Dolly Parton, who had recorded "Peace Train" several years earlier and was planning to include another Cat Stevens song on an upcoming album.[39] While the plane was in flight, the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System flagged his name as being on a no fly list. Customs agents alerted the United States Transportation Security Administration, which then diverted his flight to Bangor, Maine, where he was detained by agents from Department of Homeland Security.[50]

The following day, Yusuf Islam was deported back to the United Kingdom. The Transportation Security Administration claimed there were "concerns of ties he may have to potential terrorist-related activities."[51] The Israeli government had deported Yusuf Islam in 2000 over allegations that he provided funding to the Palestinian organization Hamas[52]; he denied doing so knowingly.[53] "I have never knowingly supported or given money to Hamas," says Yusuf Islam, who repeatedly has condemned terrorism and Islamic extremism. "At the time I was reported to have done it, I didn't know such a group existed. Some people give a political interpretation to charity. We were horrified at how people were suffering in the Holy Land."[53] However, the United States Department of Homeland Security added him to their FBI- watch list. [12] The U.S. deportation provoked a small international controversy, and led British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to complain personally to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell at the United Nations.[54] Powell responded by stating that the watch list was under review, and added, "I think we have that obligation to review these matters to see if we are right."[55]

Yusuf Islam believed his inclusion on the watch list may have simply been an error, a mistaken identification of him for a man with the same name, but different spelling. On 1 October 2004 Yusuf Islam requested the removal of his name, "I remain bewildered by the decision of the US authorities to refuse me entry to the United States."[56] According to a statement by Yusuf Islam, the man on the list was named "Youssef Islam", indicating that Yusuf Islam himself was not the suspected terrorism supporter.[7]

Two years later, in December 2006, Yusuf Islam was admitted without incident into the United States for several radio concert performances and interviews to promote his new record.[57] Islam said of the incident at the time, that, "No reason was ever given, but being asked to repeat the spelling of my name again and again, made me think it was a fairly simple mistake of identity. Rumors which circulated after made me imagine otherwise."[58]

AZGrizFan wrote:The neatest thing about the Cat Stevens story is that changing his name didn't negatively impact his career.

Appaholic wrote:

hank scorpio wrote:Are we still not allowing Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) into the U.S.?

Anybody besides me think maybe this country is banning from entry the wrong "Cat"?