Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker: the US commentators banned from the UK
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What led to Cenk Uygur's ban from entering the UK?
This is The Guardian.
Today, the left-wing US commentators banned from coming to Britain.
A few days ago, Cenk Uygur was at the airport.
So I went to LAX in Los Angeles, going to Heathrow. Didn't think twice about it. I have that ETA last two years. And since I'd come to speak at Oxford last year, it was still in effect.
An ETA, an electronic travel authorization, allows travelers to enter the UK. But Cenk, a left-wing commentator and host of the Young Turks YouTube channel, was having some problems.
I couldn't log on from my computer, which I found to be a little bit strange, but I thought, oh, I'll probably have to give the ETA number at the terminal. So I go to the terminal and a woman comes to help me and she tries to check me in through a kiosk and says, oh, that's weird. I can't check you in. Let's go look at my computer terminal. And she does. And she says, oh, wow, I've never seen this.
How did Cenk and Hasan react to their travel bans?
You've been rejected by the British government. We're not allowed to put you on the plane. You can't board because the British government has withdrawn your ETA and said you're not allowed to enter the country.
How did you feel before?
Well, at first I thought it was a bureaucratic snafu. I was like, well, that can't be right. That's absurd. I was just there, right? And there's no reason to ban me. Then that piece from The Times came out about 15 or 20 minutes after that.
As Cenk found out, he'd been banned from entering the UK, seemingly for things he'd said about Israel in the past.
I had said that America is controlled by Israel and in reference to how the Israeli lobby has given more to American Congress than any other lobby in the last election cycle. Later, they added to the story and said Cenk said that Israel had committed a genocide and their acts were barbaric and savage.
And Cenk wasn't alone. He'd been due to speak in the UK this week with his nephew, Hassan Paika, the hugely popular left-wing streamer that Hassan too had been barred.
What specific comments triggered the UK's ban on Cenk Uygur?
And as the Home Office becomes ever more hardline, Cenk and Hassan are unlikely to be the last to be banned from coming to the UK to speak. From The Guardian, I'm Lucy Hough. Today in Focus, Cenk Uyghur on Israel, free speech and his ban from the UK.
So Cenk Uygur, you will be a familiar face and voice to many of our listeners. You spent more than 20 years building a huge audience through your talk show, The Young Turks. But for anyone unfamiliar with your work, how would you describe what you do?
Young Turks is the flagship show of the TYT Network. The TYT Network is on dozens of platforms, including as a 24-hour channel. So you can see that on Roku, Amazon Prime, YouTube TV, and so many other places. But our home base is YouTube. We're the longest-lasting online show in history. We're considered on the left, and I certainly am, but all of our hosts have slightly different positions, so there is no one position for the TYT network, but we are known for being generally on the left.
Maybe the assassination was, like, not something that we... We don't know the full story.
We are the first YouTube channel ever, and so that makes me the original YouTuber.
Wow, what an accolade.
How do Cenk and Hasan perceive the implications of their bans?
Yeah. Yeah. We're the longest lasting online show in history. And in fact, I was coming to London to speak at South by Southwest about digital media, which I'm an expert in. So at Oxford, I was going to speak about Israel and foreign policy. But at South by, I was just speaking on digital media.
So you were due to come and give a talk in the UK, as you say. It's not the first time you've traveled to the UK to do such an event, right?
No.
That's right. I've spoken at Oxford twice before, and I've been to the UK many times. And in fact, they went and found old blogs from 30 years ago that was some manufactured controversy from a decade ago. Wait, I've been in Britain many times since then, so why are we now bringing those issues up? Oh, so this is an attempt at character assassination. This doesn't have anything to do with what I actually said.
What context surrounds the UK government's decision to ban these commentators?
And that's because there's no reason to ban me at all.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What led to Cenk Uygur's ban from entering the UK?
0:00–1:16
2
How did Cenk and Hasan react to their travel bans?
1:16–2:34
3
What specific comments triggered the UK's ban on Cenk Uygur?
2:34–4:04
4
How do Cenk and Hasan perceive the implications of their bans?
4:04–4:59
5
What context surrounds the UK government's decision to ban these commentators?
4:59–6:15
6
How does the Home Office justify banning individuals based on speech?
6:15–7:43
7
What are the broader implications of banning commentators for free speech?
7:43–8:54
8
What actions might Cenk take to challenge his ban from the UK?
8:54–24:32
Speakers
5 identifiedMore from Today in Focus
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