Milo Yiannopoulos banned from Australia for comments on New Zealand massacre
Far-right firebrand Milo Yiannopoulos’ social media antics regarding the recent New Zealand mosque attacks earned him a ban from Australia, the home of the self-proclaimed gunman who killed 49 people during prayer services Friday afternoon.
The conservative commentator, set to tour Australia later this year, claimed on Facebook that attacks like those in Christchurch occur “because the establishment panders to and mollycoddles extremist leftism and barbaric alien religious cultures.”
Authorities in New Zealand said at least 50 people were killed when a gunman with a camera strapped to his head opened fire inside the Masjid Al Noor and Linwood Masjid mosques, both located in the city of Christchurch. Authorities arrested three people in connection with the attack, including 28-year-old Brenton Harrison Tarrant, who has since been charged with murder.
Immigration minister David Coleman said on Saturday that Yiannopoulos’ comments in wake of the massacres were “appalling and foment hatred and division,” adding that he would not allow the former Breitbart writer to enter the country. The Australian government followed up by canceling Yiannopoulos’ visa, just one week after Coleman approved it against the advice of the home affairs department, The Guardian reported.
“Australia stands with New Zealand and with Muslim communities the world over in condemning this inhuman act,” he said, emphasizing that the shootings were “an act of pure evil” carried out “on Muslims peacefully practicing their religion.”
The tour was slated to be Yiannopoulos’ first in Australia since 2017, when conflict between his supporters and critics in Melbourne culminated in seven arrested.
Following the announcement, the provocateur took to social media to respond.
“I explicitly denounced violence. I said that we on the Right are constantly disavowing racists. I pointed out the inconvenient fact that it is the Leftists committing the majority of political violence. And I criticized the establishment for pandering to Islamic fundamentalism. So Australia banned me again,” Yiannopoulos wrote.
He added: “Coleman and his party deserve to be annihilated at the next election for their betrayal of such fundamental western values as free speech and for cravenly folding to pressure form the Left. And I suspect that electoral annihilation is about to happen.”