The Australian government revoked the visa of English conspiracy theorist David Icke this week, forbidding him to enter the country next month for a speaking tour.
Icke was due to speak in several Australian cities in March in a presentation he billed “Four hours that will change your life.”
Icke is a known conspiracy theorist. He has made such fantastical claims as the world is run by a secret cabal of alien lizard people, many of whom are Jewish. Antisemistim is an essential component of his book “And the Truth Shall Set You Free.”
He has said that Jews 'bankrolled' Adolf Hitler and started several wars, and that Al-Qaeda’s attacks on American on September 11 were an inside job organized by “a network that works through government agencies, like the CIA.”
Icke’s entry into the country was lobbied against by Jewish groups such as the Anti-Defamation Commission, and by both Labor and Liberal candidates for the federal seat of Macnamara - Josh Burns and Kate Ashmor. Macnamara has a large Jewish population.
In response to the Australian government’s decision, Icke published a statement in which he expressed shock “to have received the news earlier today that my visa had been revoked just hours before boarding a flight to Australia by Immigration Minister David Coleman."
“I have been a victim of a smear campaign from politicians who have been listening to special interest groups attempting to discredit my beliefs, my views and my character by spreading lies,” he said.
Later, Icke was interviewed on Australian TV. He told listeners that “in any free, open, mature society, people have access to all information available and then they are free to make their opinions and perceptions based on that information.
Exclusive: @davidicke speaks with us about being banned from entering Australia ahead of his speaking tour & addresses claims he's anti-Semitic & a Holocaust denier. #Studio10 pic.twitter.com/fYlRiTLTYy
— Studio 10 (@Studio10au) February 20, 2019
“We are going down a very dark, dangerous Orwellian road.”
When pushed, he would not admit whether he believed that six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis during World War II, but only that, “If the Nazis had not shut down opposition, how much of what was going on in Nazi Germany would have been known earlier?”
And when asked whether the cabal of reptiles that control the world are Jewish, he said they are “a range of people from a range of backgrounds” and that he feels that “suddenly, because you mention someone Jewish - oh wait, you are antisemitic. It’s crazy.”
A petition has been launched to overturn the “government's tyrannical last-minute ban on David Icke.”
Tensions have been high in the country. Last month, they reached a boiling point at St Kilda beach in Melbourne as hundreds of far-right wing extremists and anti-racism campaigners faced off in a screaming match during a far-right rally.
This is not the first time the Australian government has banned a controversial figure from entering the country. In recent years, it also banned American activist and whistleblower Chelsea Manning and Canadian writer and far-right political commentator Gavin McInnes.