Swedish academic says he has been barred from UK over event with Palestine Action founder

Published2 hours ago

A Swedish climate academic says he has been barred from entering the UK because he was due to speak on a panel with a co-founder of Palestine Action.

Andreas Malm told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that he had received a letter from the Home Office notifying him that his presence was "not conducive to the public good", with no further details given.

He said he could not "see any other explanation" for being denied entry than his scheduled appearance with Huda Ammori, a founder of the group, which is a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK.

The Home Office said it did not comment on individual cases.

Malm is a senior lecturer in human ecology at Sweden's Lund University, whose work includes the 2021 book How to Blow up a Pipeline and 2025's The Destruction of Palestine is the Destruction of the Earth.

He said he had asked the Home Office to explain its decision, but could not see a reason beyond the upcoming talk in London with Ammori organised by the left-wing magazine Tribune - calling the move a "severe restriction on the free exchange of ideas".

Malm said he was not a member of Palestine Action, had never publicly endorsed it, nor had he given it any financial support.

"The only link to Palestine Action is her as a person," he said, criticising the UK government for ascribing "guilt by association".

The academic acknowledged that he had previously described the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attacks on Israel - in which about 1,200 people were killed and another 251 taken hostage - as "fundamentally an act of liberation".

Malm said it was possible that these remarks, during a December 2023 talk in which he also condemned the "deplorable" killing of civilians in the cross-border attack, had been the reason for the Home Office's decision.

But he argued that these views had been in the public realm for a long time, including when he was last allowed into the UK to deliver a talk in May.

"I don't expect the British state to agree with me on Palestine or climate or anything. What I expect the British state to do is to continue to let me enter the country and to discuss with colleagues, with people who disagree with me - as I have done for years."

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The UK Supreme Court is due to review Palestine Action's controversial ban under terrorism legislation. The Home Office has said that it will robustly defend against the appeal.

More than 3,700 people are believed to have been arrested in the UK over alleged support of the group. About 2,500 have been charged, though none have gone to trial as the legal challenge to the proscription continues.

The government has broad discretion to bar foreign nationals from entering the UK if their presence is deemed to pose a risk to society.

In April, 11 people described by then-Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer as "far-right agitators" were banned from entering the UK ahead of a rally led by Tommy Robinson.

Kanye West was also denied entry that same month after backlash to his planned set at London's Wireless Festival, following a string of antisemitic, racist and pro-Nazi comments. He had previously apologised for the remarks and said his bipolar disorder had caused him to lose "touch with reality".

Left-wing political commentators Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur claimed in June that their visas had been revoked ahead of planned appearances in London and Oxford, allegedly "for criticising Israel".

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