The FREEPRESS - Britain, Don’t Ban Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur - By The Editors 06.02.26 — International

 The FREEPRESS

Britain, Don’t Ban Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur

“The furor around Piker and Uygur is a distraction from a more central issue: Britain’s repudiation of free speech,” write the editors. (Illustration by The Free Press; images via Getty)

The Hamas apologists blamed Israel for the UK’s decision to deny them entry. It’s an absurd complaint—but Britain is making a mistake.

By The Editors

06.02.26 —

International

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It’s no great secret that free speech culture isn’t exactly flourishing in Great Britain. The latest victims of British censorship are Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur, the inflammatory Hamas apologists from the United States, who are being given the same treatment as the far-right supporters of Tommy Robinson who were barred last month. The UK’s Home Office said it withdrew their permission of Piker and Uygur to enter the country because their presence “may not be conducive to the public good.”

Piker, Uygur, and their defenders naturally rushed to blame Britain’s decision on Israel. Without a shred of evidence, anti-Zionist activist and sometime journalist Glenn Greenwald claimed the entry denial was “solely because they criticize and oppose the one country deemed sacred and off-limits.” Uygur said his criticism of Israel was likewise the culprit, while Piker said his ban was “at the behest of Israel.”

The suggestion that Israel is “sacred and off-limits” to criticism in the UK or anywhere else is, of course, laughable. For one thing, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood—the government minister responsible for the decision—has long been an outspoken critic of the Jewish state. And it’s not like Piker is some low-key supporter of Palestinian rights. He has claimed that Israel is far worse than Hamas, justified both the October 7 and September 11 attacks, and is now the subject of a U.S. inquiry into his recent trips to Cuba and China, where he used social media to evangelize on behalf of the totalitarian regimes.

But the furor around Piker and Uygur is a distraction from a more central issue: Britain’s repudiation of free speech. These two American men hold views worthy of rebuke and ridicule. The lies they peddle should be rebutted forcefully. But you can do that only in a liberal system that allows free expression. If anything, refusing entry to Piker and Uygur because they pose a “potential risk” to Britain, to use the Home Office’s language, gives them way more credit than they deserve.

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In the UK, The Free Press Is Adults Only

The Free Press has written at length about Piker and his terror apologia. But we disagree with the decision by the Home Office. It is the government curtailment of speech, and a symptom of Britain’s broader slide into a kind of polite authoritarianism. As we observed following last September’s detention at Heathrow Airport of Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan, who had taunted pro-trans activists on social media, such detentions have become commonplace: over 12,000 arrests for offensive posting online in 2023—an average of more than 30 per day.

It is the common people of England, not successful public commentators like Piker or Uygur, who are feeling the brunt of London’s drift from basic notions of free expression. “We’re in a fight for the soul of this country,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer declared, justifying the decision to bar 11 influencers from entering the country for a “Unite the Kingdom” march last month. But repression will not restore the soul of a country that all but birthed the idea of free expression.

Only weak countries ban apologists for authoritarianism like Piker.

What is happening in Britain is also part of a broader move by Western nations—such as Finland and Iceland, where professions of Christian belief can land even former lawmakers in legal hot water—away from the spirit of religious liberty that undergirds our shared civilization. The United States’ strict protections for freedom of speech might be unique to us. But as we approach the 250th anniversary of our republic, we are repeatedly reminded of their universal value.

Given that Piker and Uygur are men of the left, Britain’s decision will only enhance their reputations. It will give them even more of the attention they crave, and they will use it to argue that Israel’s tentacles can reach them anywhere.

“I’ve been fighting the far right for a decade plus,” said Piker on X Monday. “I never would’ve imagined a Labor [government] would ban me from entering the UK. Dark times ahead for the West. Liberalism is dead, MAGA fascism and its corrosive influence is felt everywhere.”

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Actually, Hasan Piker Is the Democrats’ Enemy

Again, this is pure nonsense. It’s also worth noting that a swath of political campaigners have been denied entry into the UK so far this year, such as pro-Israel Canadian journalist Ezra Levant, one of those 11 “far-right agitators” blocked from supporting Robinson. Their bans received far less attention and sympathy from the mainstream press.

Only weak countries ban apologists for authoritarianism like Piker. The great lesson of the last century is that liberal democracy, with capitalism as its economic engine, is the best form of government. When free societies forget that lesson and start arresting women who pray silently outside abortion clinics or issuing travel bans for Twitch  way to protect what remains of liberal societystreamers, the free world not only becomes less free, it becomes less able to counter the authoritarianism at our doorstep. That is no.