*New Zealand has joined Australia in barring entry to conservative influencer Candace Owens over her remarks about Nazi medical experiments and the Holocaust.
“From downplaying the impact of the Holocaust with comments about [Nazi doctor Josef] Mengele through to claims that Muslims started slavery, Candace Owens has the capacity to incite discord in almost every direction,” Australia’s Immigration Minister Tony Burke told media outlets.
“Australia’s national interest is best served when Candace Owens is somewhere else,” Burke added.
As we reported earlier, Owens was set to kick off her speaking tour on Nov. 17 in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, and Adelaide. She was also slated to speak in Auckland on Nov. 14. Burke told in The Sydney Morning Herald that “Tickets to these events are selling for $100. I hope she has a good refunds policy.”
Forbes reports that Owens was denied an entertainment worker’s visa to New Zealand because individuals banned from another country are ineligible for a visa under a new law, a spokesperson for the New Zealand immigration agency told the Associated Press.
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In July, Owens suggested on her podcast that Mengele’s experiments on twins at Holocaust death camps “sounds like bizarre propaganda.” Several Jewish leaders immediately began campaigning for Australia to reject her visa.
“Australia has no place for those who mock the suffering of genocide survivors and insult the memories of the 6 million Jews who perished,” Dvir Abramovich, chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The mother of three spoke to Sydney radio station 2GB about the ban.
“It’s kind of incredible to think people could be so fearful of just speech and conversation,” Owens said. “I was quite surprised to see that: they were like ‘Don’t give her a visa, she’s a bad person’. But I promise you it is not going to harm you to hear different ideas.”
She blamed the “Zionist media empire” for the ban and said: “people don’t want me to get in front of an audience.”
Owens discussed the issue on her YouTube podcast. Watch below.
READ MORE FROM EURWEB.COM: Australia Denies Entry to Candace Owens Over Controversial Nazi Comments
