The British government barred 22-year-old Canadian journalist and YouTuber Lauren Southern from entering the United Kingdom on Monday under the Terrorism Act 2000. The U.K. Home Office concluded that Southern’s presence in the county “is not conducive to the public good” and accused her of “distribution of racist materials” representing “a threat to the fundamental interests of society and to the public policy of the United Kingdom.” Southern’s alleged racism refers to an incident in Luton at which she distributed a satirical “LGBT for Islam UK” poster, which prompted authorities to accuse Southern of “Christian extremism.” The British government apparently labors under the misconception that Islam is a race. Islam is not a race but rather a religion founded in the seventh century after Muhammad encountered a heretical Christian monk named Bahira on a merchant trip to Syria with his uncle Abu Talib.
Southern’s arrest comes just days after British newspapers exposed Britain’s “worst ever” child sex abuse scandal in Telford, where Middle Eastern immigrants groomed, raped, pimped, and tortured as many as 1,000 children since the 1980s. The Mirror’s 18-month investigation into the child sex slavery revealed “abuse on unprecedented levels,” as well as continuous attempts by British authorities to hide abusers’ Middle Eastern background “for fear of ‘racism.’” One 13-year-old victim pulled out of the investigation because she “didn’t feel she was being emotionally supported” by police. Families of victims were regularly tortured and killed, as when abuser Azhar Ali Mehmood set fire to the Lowe family house in 2000. Fear of reprisal against families kept countless other victims silent and obedient.
British police repeatedly failed to investigate tips and even direct accusations from abusers’ parents. Authorities in one case failed to investigate on five separate occasions and relented only when a Member of Parliament intervened. Perhaps the authorities neglected their duty over so many decades because they were so busy ignoring all of the terrorists that were entering their country, including:
- the six Iranian Arab gunmen who seized the Iran embassy in London in 1980, taking six hostages and murdering two of them.
- Hussein Ghassan Said, Marwan al-Banna, and Nawaf al-RosanSaid, who shot and critically injured the Israeli ambassador in London in 1982;
- Mustafa Mahmoud Mazeh, who blew himself up along with two floors of a London hotel in 1989 while trying to murder British author and former Muslim Salman Rushdie for insulting Islam;
- Mohammad Sidique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer, Germaine Lindsay, and Hasib Hussain, who murdered 52 people and injured 700 by targeting public transit at rush hour in 2005;
- Bilal Abdullah and Kafeel Ahmed, who rammed a Jeep filled with gas canisters through the Glasgow Airport doors in 2007;
- Michael Adebolajo and Micahel Adebowale, who murdered and decapitated the British soldier Lee Rigby in the name of Allah in 2013;
- Muhaydin Mire, who attacked three Tube travelers with a knife while shouting, “This is for Syria,” in 2015;
- Salman Abedi, who was radicalized in Syria before murdering 22 people and injuring 250 at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester last year;
- Khuram Shazad Butt, Rachid Redouane, and Youssef Zaghba, who rammed 48 pedestrians in a white van across London Bridge, after which they leapt out and started stabbing people, also last year;
- And finally Ahmed Hassan, the 18-year-old Iraqi who blew up the tube stop at Parsons Green, injuring 30 people, also last year.
The Home Office’s cowardice and failure have left a trail of blood and misery throughout the United Kingdom. But hey — at least they stopped Lauren Southern.