Britain Bans Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur for Opposing Genocide

Britain welcomes apologists for genocide – and bars those who oppose it

By Owen Jones, BattleLines

Britain’s banning of the left-wing, pro-Palestinian American commentators Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur marks another descent into authoritarianism.

Let us be clear about what has happened here. Both men have plainly been barred by the British government because of their opposition to the crime of crimes: that is, genocide, namely that perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinian people. That same genocide has been armed, excused and facilitated by Keir Starmer’s Labour government.

The West is now in the midst of the greatest assault on free speech since the McCarthyite witch-hunts of the 1950s. Then, Senator Joseph McCarthy led a campaign against supposed “Reds”. Today, it is opponents of Israel’s genocide who are being targeted: deplatformed, threatened, sacked, arrested – sometimes violently – imprisoned, and menaced with deportation.

In Britain, Labour has already proscribed the anti-genocide direct action movement Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, placing it on the same legal footing as al-Qaeda and ISIS. More than 3,200 people – many of them elderly – have been arrested for holding placards opposing genocide and supporting Palestine Action.

Meanwhile, protests against genocide have been demonised as “hate marches” and subjected to mounting legal curbs. Organisers have been dragged through the courts.

Freedom of speech in Britain is being curtailed in the service of a foreign state, Israel, which is committing genocide, alongside multiple other crimes.

Critique of that state is being – scandalously and dangerously – conflated with hatred of Jewish people.