Shame! UK censors Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur 

The United Kingdom’s interior ministry is prohibiting two progressive commentators, Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur, from visiting the country to participate in an ideas festival. This is abject censorship and ought to be condemned as such.  

Uygur is a co-host of “The Young Turks,” a popular news program on YouTube, and has appeared frequently on “Rising.” Piker, who made a name for himself as a Twitch streamer, is Uygur’s nephew. Both are relentless critics of the state of Israel. Piker often goes much further than Uygur, and has repeatedly made gross and inflammatory statements, including that America “deserved” 9/11 and offering praise for repressive communist regimes.  

These are not good reasons to deny him entry to the U.K., however.  

In a statement, the government confirmed that it had rescinded the pair’s travel visas because “their presence in the U.K. may not be conducive to the public good,” an Orwellian-sounding statement if ever there was one.  

It is true that the U.K. lacks a First Amendment, and as such, is under no special obligation to protect free expression within the country. Moreover, governments can — and do — place restrictions on who can visit. Kanye West, for example, has also been denied entry to perform in the U.K. due to his history of anti-Semitism.  

Neither Piker nor Uygur are British citizens. But that doesn’t mean it is right to just ban them. On the contrary, it is a disturbing new low for an ostensibly free and liberal Western democracy to decide that political commentators should not be allowed to speak within the........

© The Hill