Anti-Israel influencer says he was barred from entering UK
US left-wing political streamer Hasan Piker, a vocal critic of Israel, said he has been barred from entering the UK after MPs and Jewish groups urged the government to revoke his visa.
Piker, who has 3 million followers on Twitch and 2 million on YouTube, was scheduled to speak at the SXSW London festival on Thursday. In a post on X on Sunday, he said that his visa had been revoked “at the behest of Israel.”
“The West is betraying ‘liberal values’ for a genocidal fascist foreign government,” he added.
Cenk Uygur, co-founder of the political commentary show The Young Turks and Piker’s uncle, said earlier that he was also barred from entering the UK. He was due to speak at the same event as Piker.
“I’ve been banned for criticizing Israel. Are we free anymore?” he wrote on X. In a later livestream, he said that the British government deemed him “a serious risk to public order.”
In April, US rapper Kanye West was banned from entering Britain over anti-Semitic remarks. Like many Western countries, the UK has experienced an increase in anti-Semitic incidents amid the conflict in Gaza and broader tensions in the Middle East.
Piker and Uygur have long criticized Israel’s war in Gaza, which they have described as genocide. Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League and the UK’s Jewish Leadership Council, have accused Piker of anti-Semitism and of justifying terrorism, including Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
“I would vote for Hamas over Israel every single time,” Piker said on the Pod Save America podcast in April. UK Labour MP David Taylor said statements such as these demonstrate that Piker’s presence would be “not conducive to the public good.”
On May 23, Fox News Digital reported that the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) had subpoenaed Piker over his participation in a Cuba media tour for left-wing influencers. Cuba has been under a US-imposed fuel blockade since earlier this year. Piker told Fox on Sunday that he had not been served with any papers.
