Alt-right troll Milo Yiannopoulos denied entry to Australia
Gay, alt-right ideologue Milo Yiannopoulos has been denied entry to Australia after officials refused him a visa on character grounds.
The decision came over a week after Yiannopoulos was allowed to ask a video question of Jordan Peterson – who has said he refuses to use gender neutral pronouns if someone prefers them – on the ABC program Q&A, prompting significant backlash.
Yiannopoulos has been given a month to appeal the denial of entry, The Age reported.
The Department of Home Affairs cited character grounds as the reason for denying the former Breitbart editor’s visa, including sending $14.88 to a Jewish journalist using PayPal – which saw him banned from the platform – referring to a racist numeric symbol used by Neo-Nazis.
In December last year it was revealed that Yiannoupoulos was $2 million in debt after event promoters published documents and correspondence with the alt-right figure.
That figure likely includes the $50,000 bill he was handed by Victorian police after clashes between attendees and protesters erupted outside his Melbourne event in 2017.
In August last year he wrote a lengthy tantrum on Facebook, saying he had “lost everything” and attacking his followers for not supporting him in his efforts to hold events which he said were often shut down due to “sabotage from Republican competitors or social media outcries”.
He was last year banned from crowdfunding site Patreon when he attempted to court money from supporters to “get back on [his] feet”.
Part of a letter sent to Yiannopoulos last week said his presence in Australian may “incite discord in the Australian community or in a segment of that community”.
“Despite the locations of your previous appearances being withheld by the organisers until 24 hours prior to the events, there were significant protests at both the Sydney and Melbourne events,” the Department of Home Affairs letter said.
Yiannopoulos previously chimed in on the marriage equality postal survey, telling Australians to vote No just weeks after his own same-sex wedding, and in 2017 he called trans people “mentally ill” and claimed that trans children “are just gay”.
By the end of that month, he had cancelled his Australian tour – on which he was due to be joined by Fox News pundit Ann Coulter – without offering refunds.
Yiannopoulos was set to join far-right commentators Gavin McInnes and Tommy Robinson on the ‘Deplorables Tour’, which has been repeatedly rescheduled, and is due to kick off in Perth later this month.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has been sending letters to Immigration Minister David Coleman lobbying for Milo to be allowed to enter the country, saying there is “no reason” to stop Yiannopoulos and Robinson from entering the country.
Hanson wrote on Facebook that “the government is now acting as an arm of Antifa” and that “this gutless Government is validating the left’s use of violence to silence people”.
Good to see that there are times when the Federal Government does do its job right!