UK Parliament Considers Barring Donald Trump from Country
On January 18th the UK government will debate whether to prevent Donald Trump from entering the country, following a large scale petition.
As NBC news reports, following Trump’s wish to ban Muslims from entering the United States, a petition reached 568,000 signatures.
In the UK, parliament is obliged to take notice of any public petition that reaches over 100,000 signatures.
Image Credit: Michael Vadon (Flickr)
The petition reads:
“The signatories believe Donald J Trump should be banned from UK entry. The UK has banned entry to many individuals for hate speech.
The same principles should apply to everyone who wishes to enter the UK. If the United Kingdom is to continue applying the ‘unacceptable behaviour’ criteria to those who wish to enter its borders, it must be fairly applied to the rich as well as poor, and the weak as well as powerful.”
Blogger Jonathan Turley has voiced his concerns over the move and what it means for free speech:
“While I have criticized Trump’s statements about barring Muslims from entering the country, he is entitled to voice his views on immigration and participate in a debate about how we are going to handle both immigration and national security concerns. The chilling thing about this debate in Parliament is not that it will succeed in barring Trump but that it would not be in any way out of order with prior content-based sanctions.”
He continues:
“Thus, we will watch on January 18th as free people rally around the concept of less freedom — calling for their government to curtail the freedom of everyone in order to silence those with whom they disagree.”
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