Border controlFrench anti-Semitic entertainer banned from U.K.
The United Kingdom has banned the anti-Semitic French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala from entering the country. Dieudonné was planning to go to Britain to offer support to Nicolas Anelka, the French 34-year old forward who plays for the West Brom Albion soccer club. On 28 December, Anelka celebrated a goal he scored against West Ham by performing the “quenelle” – an inverted Nazi salute popularized by Dieudonné. Owing to its creator and what he says about Jews and his mocking of the Holocaust, the quenelle carries an unmistakably anti-Semitic message, although some of those who performed it in public argue they were under the impression it was merely and anti-establishment and anti-system gesture.
Banned in the U.K. comedian M'bala M'bala // Source: presstv.ir
The United Kingdom has banned the anti-Semitic French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala from entering the country. Following an advisory from the French ministry of the interior, several cities around France have cancelled appearances by Dieudonné, explaining that his racial incitement and anti-Semitic rants pose a threat to public order. The Guardian reports that Dieudonné was planning to go to Britain to offer support to Nicolas Anelka, the French 34-year old forward who plays for the West Brom Albion soccer club. On 28 December, Anelka celebrated a goal he scored against West Ham by performing the “quenelle” – an inverted Nazi salute popularized by Dieudonné.
Owing to its creator and what he says about Jews and his mocking of the Holocaust, the quenelle carries an unmistakably anti-Semitic message, although some of those who performed it in public – Anelka himself; French mid-fielder Samir Nasri, who plays for Manchester City; and Tony Parker, the French basketball guard playing for the San Antonio Spurs – argued they were under the impression it was merely and anti-establishment and anti-system gesture. Nasri and Parker apologized for doing the quenelle, but Anelka refused to apologize.
Anelka has been charged by the British Football Association with violating the league’s anti-racism by-laws, and is now facing a disciplinary hearing at the end of February.
The U.K. Home Office has announced Dieudonné to be a persona non grata and warned he will not be allowed into the country.
The Home Office circulated a warning to airlines, transport companies, and border crossings officials that the performer is an “excluded” individual.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We can confirm that Mr. Dieudonné is subject to an exclusion order. The home secretary will seek to exclude an individual from the U.K. if she considers that there are public policy or public security reasons to do so.”
Fans of Dieudonné, many of them sons and daughters of African immigrants to France who feel alienated from French society and culture, have joined civil libertarians in criticizing the ban the French government and many municipalities have imposed on Dieudonné’s public appearances. Dieudonné, in order to avoid the ban, even rewrote the material for his shows, dropping the most offensive anti-Semitic lines from his monologue, but to no avail.
Dieudonné has been convicted on numerous occasions for inciting racial hatred, anti-Semitic hate-speech, and his denial of the Holocaust, which is a crime in France.