The government has cancelled the visa of a Jewish influencer who has previously called for the ban of Islam and was booked to speak at several events in Australia.<\/p>\n
The right-leaning Australian Jewish Association (AJA) said Sammy Yahood\u2019s visa was cancelled three hours before his flight was due to depart.<\/p>\n
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke<\/a>, confirmed he had cancelled the visa on Monday evening, and said \u201cspreading hatred is not a good reason to come\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIf someone wants to come to Australia they should apply for the right visa and come for the right reason,\u201d Burke told Guardian Australia in a statement.<\/p>\n In response to the decision, Yahood took to social media overnight to accuse Labor of \u201ctyranny\u201d, insisting his spirits remained high despite the block.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not a story about me whatsoever,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a story about government overreaching.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a story about tyranny, censorship and control. We cannot allow it.\u201d<\/p>\n Yahood has made multiple posts on X, formerly Twitter, calling Islam a \u201cmurderous ideology\u201d, a \u201cdisgusting ideology\u201d, and claiming Islam \u201ccannot be trusted to simply \u2018co-exist\u2019\u201d. On 6 November, he wrote on X: \u201cIt\u2019s time to ban Islam. It\u2019s time to stop being tolerant of those that are not tolerant of us.\u201d<\/p>\n Yahood, who grew up in the United Kingdom and recently moved to Israel, was due to run a series of \u201cself defence workshops\u201d and launch his \u201cpeace through strength\u201d campaign.<\/p>\n Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n The AJA has criticised the cancellation of Yahood\u2019s visa, and said he was scheduled to speak to the AJA in major synagogues and to other organisations across Australia.<\/p>\n \u201cSammy is the latest Jew to have his visa cancelled by this government. As in other cases, they wait until the last minute,\u201d the organisation wrote on X.<\/p>\n \u201cParliament just voted to increase the powers of Toby [sic] Burke to cancel visas as an apparent response to support the Jewish community following the Bondi massacre.\u201d<\/p>\n The AJA described one event, due to be held in Melbourne, as \u201ca unique introductory session to self defence. Working through physical exercises to learn essential techniques and principles for personal safety. Let\u2019s take accountability for our security together.\u201d<\/p>\n Another event, also scheduled in Melbourne on 28 January, said the event was \u201cempowering Jews to stand unapologetically strong\u201d.<\/p>\n Yahood confirmed his visa had been cancelled in an Instagram post, and said he was still flying to United Arab Emirates and \u201cworking to sort\u201d. He said his fiancee, who was attending the events with him, will continue to travel to Australia.<\/p>\n Burke recently barred the entry of far-right Israeli politician Simcha Rothman<\/a>, who was scheduled to appear at events also organised by the AJA. Rothman has described Palestinian children in Gaza as \u201cenemies\u201d and called for Israel\u2019s total control of the West Bank.<\/p>\n The home affairs minister has also barred the entry of other personalities and politicians with a history of controversial or offensive statements, including the rapper Kanye West<\/a>, and the former Israeli minister Ayelet Shaked<\/a>.<\/p>\n The cancellation, which was made under existing laws, comes just one week after the federal government passed new legislation<\/a> that increases the grounds the home affairs minister can use to reject or cancel a visa. The minister could prevent an individual coming to Australia if they believe a person has engaged in hate, vilification or extremist conduct<\/a> under the character test.<\/p>\n Yahood was approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The government has cancelled the visa of a Jewish influencer who has previously called for the ban of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-259598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}