Popular Canadian activist Lauren Southern was detained by Border Force in Calais and barred from entering the United Kingdom. Officials with the UK Home Office said that Border Force has the power to refuse entry to anyone they consider to have a presence in the United Kingdom which may not be favorable to the public good.
Lauren Southern previously worked for the popular right wing Canadian news site The Rebel Media. Southern has claimed that British officials told her she was denied entry into the United Kingdom because of racism.
Lauren Southern a threat to UK public
Southern previously supported an operation that worked to allegedly prevent the rescue of refugees. Ms. Southern later took to social media saying she was locked out but doing fine. She also said that all the cool people are being banned.
Southern was not the only activist to be detained. Popular Austrian activist Martin Sellner and his American YouTuber girlfriend Brittany Pettibone, were also detained by the British government. The couple were denied entry at the Luton Airport over the weekend, officials also claimed their presence was not favorable to the public good. Sellner and Pettibone were detained and later removed from Britain on Sunday.
Fascinating that the U.K. Border Force allows so many illegals to slip through the cracks, but it’s suddenly the most competent Border Force in the world when it comes to banning two female conservative independent journalists and an Identitarian activist. pic.twitter.com/JLM9OHOgjP
— Brittany Pettibone (@BrittPettibone) March 12, 2018
Southern was planning to visit friends in the country including Tommy Robinson, founder of the English Defense League, who is often criticized for his fiery criticism of Islam. Sellner was scheduled to speak at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park on Sunday.
Dr. Joe Mulhall (who is part of the anti-racism campaign “Hope not Hate”) has said the organization had been raising concerns about Ms. Lauren Southern’s work and activism. Mullhall told The Independent that she was becoming even more extreme in her recent outbursts and associations.
Southern has said she was detained for six hours and questioned for four hours in a detention center.
Southern told Fox News, that they asked her if she was a Christian extremist and how she felt about running over people with cars.
Lauren Southern getting used to denial of entry
This latest denial of entry stems from a social experiment that Southern and Robinson conducted in Luton, which has a high Islamic population. They both passed out faux “LGBT for Islam UK” posters that said “Allah is Gay, Trans, Lesbian, Intersex, Feminist, Queer, and is All of Us.”
Southern launched the experiment in response to an article that Vice produced which asked whether Jesus was gay, and also to show how the Islamic community would react if a similar claim was made about Allah.
Police later told them to remove the posters for their own safety. Southern and Robinson denied that the materials were racists, claiming that criticizing a religion is not a racist act.
Southern, Pettibone and Sellner are not the first to be denied entry into the United Kingdom after criticizing Islam. American radio talk show host Michael Savage and controversial blogger Pamela Geller have been barred as well.
