The UK ban on Pamela Geller and me is a naked concession to Leftist and Islamic supremacist pressure groups. The government claims that our presence would have led to violence. Yet we have never advocated or condoned violence, and have spoken all over the world without a single incidence of violence. The darker truth is that we were banned for supporting Israel. Please help us fight the ban: donate via Paypal to americanfreedomdefense@aol.com. “Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller Are still Fighting Back against Their Ban: Help Them,” by Enza Ferreri for Liberty GB, January 21:
The 25th June 2013 is a significant date not only in the history of the counterjihad movement but also in the history of freedom of speech in one of the countries that most contributed to its establishment: Britain.
That is the date on the letter to Robert Spencer announcing the UK Home Secretary Theresa May’s decision that he should
be excluded from the United Kingdom on the grounds that your presence here is not conducive to the public good …
The Home Secretary notes that you are the founder of the blog Jihad Watch (a site widely criticized for being Islamophobic). You co-founded the Freedom Defense Initiative and Stop Islamization of America, both of which have been described as anti-Muslim hate groups.
So those were the reasons given for Spencer’s and fellow founder of American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and SIOA Pamela Geller’s ban.
As Robert Spencer put it at the time:
Muhammad al-Arifi, who has advocated Jew-hatred, wife-beating, and jihad violence, entered the U.K. recently with no difficulty. In not allowing us into the country solely because of our true and accurate statements about Islam, the British government is behaving like a de facto Islamic state. The nation that gave the world the Magna Carta is dead.
Al-Arifi is just one of the many Islamists admitted to Britain, in this case just a few days before Spencer’s ban. The interesting thing about him is that he’s the author of these words:
Devotion to jihad for the sake of Allah, and the desire to shed blood, to smash skulls, and to sever limbs for the sake of Allah and in defense of His religion, is, undoubtedly, an honor for the believer. Allah said that if a man fights the infidels, the infidels will be unable to prepare to fight.
Robert Spencer, according to the Home Office, instead wrote this:
… it [Islam] is a religion and is a belief system that mandates warfare against unbelievers for the purpose for establishing a societal model that is absolutely incompatible with Western society because media and general government unwillingness to face the sources of Islamic terrorism these things remain largely unknown.
The grammatically and logically confused quotation is unlikely to be literal, as anyone who’s read Robert’s prose will easily realize. Nevertheless, what distinguishes the latter extract from the one immediately above? They both equate Islam with war against infidels, but one – al-Arifi’s – approvingly, and the other – Spencer’s – disapprovingly:
[I]t is perfectly acceptable to speak about jihad violence in the UK, as long as you’re for it. If you oppose it, watch out …
This is even more true in view of the fact that the purpose of the two anti-jihad campaigners’ visit to Britain was to lay a wreath at a memorial for British soldier Lee Rigby – murdered by two jihadists on a London street on 22nd May – on Armed Forces Day, 29th June.
Immediately after the ban, The British Society For Freedom of Speech published the online petition Allow Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer to Speak in UK, which has so far collected almost 10,000 signatures, including mine.
On 2nd July, Spencer and Geller fought back with an appeal against their ban and instructed lawyers in the UK.
A couple of weeks ago, two judges decided to uphold the Government’s exclusion on Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller from the UK.
But that’s not the end of it. A fund has been established to help the lawsuit against the entry ban.
They know that it’s not going to be easy:
The entire British government and media elite is determined to appease Islamic supremacists and discredit and silence the defenders of freedom. We will have to hire a top British legal team that can navigate through all the roadblocks and obstacles that the Home Office puts up.
It’s going to cost us upwards of $25,000.

Mark says
Don’t shoot the messenger here because I would very much like to hear you speak in the UK.
However, you need to know that you are paying the price of your support for the EDL.
This decision always seemed niave to me. Whatever was intended by its founders, the EDL became a vehicle for intemperate expressions of hostility towards Muslims.
We are making progress on this issue in the UK. I try to do my bit with a blog
http://my.telegraph.co.uk/enigmaticislam/
which has remained uncensored in a major national news site.
But the only way to achieve progress is through restrained and reasoned argument, of which Mr Spencer is a master. The EDL’s presence on the streets was always a gift to the liberal left seeking to label all those concerned about Islam as far-right extremists.
It would have been wiser to keep the EDL at arm’s length.
joeb says
Mark,
Completely agree, Robert and Pamela should not have supported the EDL. The EDL has a huge target on its back as far as the government is concerned, and therefore anyone associated with them does as well. Robinson himself said that the EDL had become polluted with racist and extreme nutcases, and there’s no way back from that.
It’s hardly surprising, as the British media constantly reminded racist and extreme lunatics that the EDL was the organisation for them.
I can understand why they supported him, but it was a mistake, and I’m sure they’ve both learned from it. Whatever you think of Tommy Robinson’s views about Jihad and Islamic supremacism, he is in fact a petty criminal. That is not my opinion, that is a fact, borne out by his record – so please, no “you have no idea what you’re talking about” if you are that way inclined. Not someone I would personally trust, frankly…
Wandelf says
Mark – “the only way to achieve progress is through restrained and reasoned argument”
“We can talk about this, can’t we?” – Theo van Gogh, dying on a dutch street, full of bullets from the gun of Mohammed Bouyeri, jihadi, seconds before Bouyeri fired more bullets into him, cut his throat down to his spinal column, and stabbed him deeply in the chest with two knives, one bearing a letter threatening the life of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the whole of the West.
Islam proceeds and expands by three main methods, violence in fact and in threat, lying by commission and omission, and clonisation by stealth and by warfare.
There may be a point in reasoned argument amongst ourselves in non-muslim societies facing the mounting muslim threat, there is no point in reasoned argument with members of a religion that is by its nature violent, irrational, and dishonest. The best we can do is to provide help and intellectual ammunition to that minority of muslims who come to see the light – or should I say the darkness – about Islam, the future Ayaan Hirsi Alis, the Nonie Darwishes, the ibn-Warraqs. The best we can hope is that their number grows and ex-muslims outnumber muslims. I am not holding my breath.
Reasoned argument with muslims is not the answer, as Theo van Gogh discovered, any more than it was the answer to the violent, dishonest, irrational, expansionist system that was Nazism.
Bamaguje says
One would expect the Home Office to make its decision about whether or not to allow people into UK, based on its own proper investigation, not based on character assassinating rumours – ‘widely criticized’ or ‘have been described.’
Lost Leonardo says
The solidarity of all British patriots is with Richard and Pamela, not the unrepresentative Government in Westminster.
Sean says
I completely agree with what you’ve said here Mark and lessons have been learnt I believe. Since Tommy Robinson joined the Quilliam Foundation Robert Spencer hasn’t posted an article on Robinson or the EDL which is a good move in my opinion.
If Robert Spencer wants to make ties with likeminded people in the UK I would recommend Enza Ferreri of LibertyGB.
I wish Robert and Pamela all the best with their court case and I’m confident they’ll prevail in the end however where America is a greater country than the UK is they have a constitution whereas we are still subjects of a monarchy so we are at some what of a disadvantage.
I also wish you Mark the best with your blog.
gravenimage says
Spencer and Pamela Geller Are Still Fighting Back against Their Ban” from the UK
……………………………………..
Bravo! This ban of two peaceful people is utter appalling, and is a tacit enforcement of the Shari’ah ban on any criticism of Islam.
More:
The UK ban on Pamela Geller and me is a naked concession to Leftist and Islamic supremacist pressure groups. The government claims that our presence would have led to violence. Yet we have never advocated or condoned violence, and have spoken all over the world without a single incidence of violence. The darker truth is that we were banned for supporting Israel.
……………………………………..
This is also a concession to Muslim *threats* of violence—since it is not Mr. Spencer or Ms. Geller who have ever espoused violence.
More:
Muhammad al-Arifi, who has advocated Jew-hatred, wife-beating, and jihad violence, entered the U.K. recently with no difficulty. In not allowing us into the country solely because of our true and accurate statements about Islam, the British government is behaving like a de facto Islamic state. The nation that gave the world the Magna Carta is dead.
……………………………………..
Yes—advocating Islamic violence is perfectly fine—because it will not cause Muslim violence. This is not only unjust, it is *terribly short-sighted*. How can this fail to enable more Muslim violence as things go on?
More:
[I]t is perfectly acceptable to speak about jihad violence in the UK, as long as you’re for it. If you oppose it, watch out …
……………………………………..
Suicidal madness.
It would be easy for Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller to decide that Britain is a lost cause—instead, they continue to fight for freedom of speech. Bravo!