PEGIDA founder Lutz Bachmann has been prevented from entering Britain to deliver a speech at Speakers’ Corner, partly on the grounds that he “knows” identitarian activist Martin Sellner.

Bachmann had planned on delivering a speech written by the Generation Identity leader, who was recently detained along with YouTube political pundit Brittany Pettibone and then ejected from the country, partly on the grounds that GI is “viewed in the UK as a right wing organization” and partly on the grounds that Pettibone intended to “interview Tommy Robinson — a far right leader whose materials and speeches incite racial hatred”, according to seemingly official documents.

Bachmann also shared a picture of a document which he claims is from the officials who stopped him, which asserts that PEGIDA is “involved in the promotion and incitement of racial hatred and division of communities” and notes that “[by] your own admission during interview you have known [Sellner] well for some years” as grounds for denying his Free Movement rights.

“A speech was discovered during a baggage search which you have stated you are intending to deliver to the general public at speakers corner, Hyde Park,” the poorly written document states.

“This speech relates to your organization “Pediga” which is devoted to “combating the threat of Islam”, the activities of this organization have been involved in the promotion and incitement of racial hatred and division of communities. Furthermore this speech appears to have been written and it is believed should have been delivered by Martin Sellner an individual who is a member of an Austrian group which also promotes racial hatred and works against community cohesion and who according to your own admission during interview you have known very well for some years.

“According to Home Office records Mr Martin Sellner was recently refused admission to the UK on the grounds of public policy which he refers to in his speech which you intend to deliver.”

Officials have also recently detained and deported Canadian activist and independent journalist Lauren Southern, who is currently working on a documentary which highlights the apparent persecution of the white minority in South Africa.

Southern was detained under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act — despite what is claimed to be a recording of a conversation between Kent Police and Southern’s father showing an official laughingly admit that they “don’t suspect her of being a terrorist or anything like that.”

Critics have suggested the British authorities have been much more zealous in protecting the borders from right-leaning activists and journalists than they have been against foreign criminals, Islamic hate preachers, and returning jihadist fighters. </s> This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The founder of the German far-right group Pegida has been denied entry to the UK and deported, officials have confirmed.

Lutz Bachmann, who was once pictured styled as Hitler, is the fourth foreign figure in the extreme right wing to be turned away at the UK border in the space of a fortnight.

The Home Office said it had stopped the chair of the anti-Islam, anti-immigration group at Stansted airport on Saturday and deported him the next day, adding that his presence in the UK was “not conducive to the public good”.

Pegida said Bachmann’s intention had been to appear at Speakers’ Corner, in central London, to take the place of Martin Sellner, a white supremacist who was among the far-right activists prevented from entering Britain since 9 March.



Sellner’s partner, Brittany Pettibone, and Lauren Southern were also turned away because their presence was not deemed conducive to the public good.

Tommy Robinson, the former leader of the English Defence League, whose social media posts were cited repeatedly in the trial of the Finsbury Park terrorist Darren Osborne, gave Sellner’s speech at Speakers’ Corner on Sunday.

A spokesperson for the anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate said the decision to deny entry to Bachmann was unsurprising given his “extreme history” and the deportations of Pettibone, Sellner and Southern.

“Far from being denied a chance to air their views, as they often like to falsely claim, these extremists have abused freedom of speech and social media platforms to spread and push toxic views,” the spokesperson said.

Even those with vile views have the right to be heard | Kenan Malik Read more

Hope Not Hate highlighted Bachmann’s criminal past (he has previously been convicted of drug possession, assault and burglary) and said he had “made his name as a prominent Islamophobe”.

Bachmann briefly stood down as the leader of Pegida in January 2015 after a photo showed him with a Hitler-style moustache. He was reinstated as chair a month later.

Pegida said Bachmann was expected to appear at an event being held by the group in its east German stronghold, Dresden, on Monday.



Referring to his case, a Home Office spokesman said: “Border Force has the power to refuse entry to an individual if it is considered that his or her presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good.”

The Home Office also confirmed the deportations of Southern, Sellner and Pettibone for the same reason. </s> Another far-right activist has been refused entry to Britain, following the recent banning of internet personalities Martin Sellner, Lauren Southern and Brittany Pettibone.

Lutz Bachmann, the founder of the far-right Patriotic Europeans against Islamisation of the West ("Pediga") movement, was banned ahead of a mass meeting at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park, where the activist Tommy Robinson was due to address a large crowd.

Bachmann founded Pediga in 2014 in protest at plans for refugee centres to open in Dresden. The 45-year-old, who has a number of criminal convictions including drug dealing, theft and assault, stepped down as leader in 2015, following an outcry over a Facebook photo which appeared to show him dressed as Hitler – but was later reinstated.

A Home Office source confirmed he was refused leave to enter and admission respectively at Stansted Airport on 17 March, on policy grounds that his presence in the UK was not conducive to the public good.

He was detained and subsequently removed from the UK the next day – the morning of the event. </s> Lutz Bachmann said on his Facebook page that he was not allowed to enter the UK because he carried a copy of a speech by far-right Austrian activist Martin Sellner, who himself had been denied entry last week.

Read more: The far-right's push to enter the German judicial system

Both the dpa news agency and daily Bild say the UK's Home Office had confirmed to them that Bachmann had been detained at London's Stansted Airport and then deported back to Germany as his presence in the UK was deemed "not conducive to the public good," without going into more detail.

Bachmann had planned to go to a far-right rally at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park, where former English Defence League (EDL) leader Tommy Robinson read out Sellner's speech.

Read more: Germany sees almost 1,000 anti-Muslim crimes in 2017

On Facebook, Bachmann says the fact that he was to attend the event was the sole reason for him being denied entry, as he had recently attended other events in London, Manchester and Birmingham – all in the UK.

Sellner, of the white supremacist Generation Identity group, and his girlfriend Brittany Pettibone, a YouTube commentator, were detained at London's Luton Airport on March 12 and refused entry into the UK.

Bachmann, whose PEGIDA movement organizes regular anti-foreigner and anti-Islam marches through German cities, has been previously been convicted of inciting racial hatred in Germany.

DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here. </s> The founder of far right anti-Islam group Pegida has been barred from entry to the UK and deported from Stansted airport.

Lutz Bachmann, who has led anti-immigration marches of tens of thousands of people, landed at Stansted airport on Saturday night.

He was detained and subsequently expelled from the UK on Sunday morning.

We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. From 15p €0.18 $0.18 USD 0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras.

The Home Office told The Independent Bachmann was refused entry on grounds his presence in Britain was not in the interest of the public good.

“Border Force has the power to refuse entry to an individual if it is considered that his or her presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good,” said a spokesperson.

Supporters say Bachmann was due to speak alongside Tommy Robinson – the former English Defence League leader who founded a subsidiary branch of Pegida in the UK – at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park on Sunday.

The 45-year-old founded Pegida, which stands for “Patriotic Europeans against Islamisation of the West”, in October 2014 to demonstrate opposition to plans for 14 refugee centres in Dresden, Germany.

Branded “Nazis in pinstripes”, the group has been widely accused of racism, fascism and xenophobia.

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Bachmann stepped down from his official role as leader in January 2015 after a picture of him dressed as Hitler surfaced on Facebook – something he dismissed as a “joke”. However, he then capitalised on a resurgence of concerns around a migration influx and returned to his post after the outcry had subsided a few months later.

According to the Sachsische Zeitung newspaper, Bachmann has several criminal convictions – 16 burglaries, driving drunk or without a licence and dealing cocaine.

In 1998, after Bachmann was sentenced to a number of years in prison, he fled to South Africa but was deported back to Germany.

A spokesperson for anti-racism campaign Hope Not Hate told The Independent they were not surprised Bachmann was refused entry to the UK.

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“Bachmann is a multiply convicted racist, drug dealer and burglar who, like Tommy Robinson, has made his name as a prominent Islamophobe,” they said.

“Far from being denied a chance to air their views, as they often like to falsely claim, these extremists have abused freedom of speech and social media platforms to spread and push toxic views which, as Britain’s most senior anti-terror police officer has warned, are akin to how jihadi hate preachers like Anjem Choudary pushed their vile beliefs in the past.

“These extremists are two sides of the same coin and need each other – which we, the ordinary Britons, do not.

“In the wake of the Government’s decision to refuse entry to Lauren Southern, Brittany Pettibone and Martin Sellner last week, we warned that Bachmann – with his extreme history – could also be turned away. It appears that today that is the case.”

The decision to bar Bachmann comes after Canadian far-right activist Lauren Southern was detained in Calais and banned from entering the UK earlier in the week.

Ms Southern, who worked for far-right Canadian site The Rebel Media, was held by Border Force in Coquelles on Monday.

Ms Southern, who supported a seaborne mission seeking to hamper the rescue of refugees, claimed British authorities had told her she was “officially banned from UK for racism” after being detained.

“They just locked me out and said ‘au revoir’ ... Officially banned from UK for ‘racism’ ... Doing fine though, all the cool people are being banned anyway,” the far-right provocateur tweeted.

Writing in a Facebook post last week, Generation Identity, a British white supremacist group, said Austrian far-right activist Martin Sellner and his American girlfriend Britanny Pettibone, who is a YouTuber and author, had been detained by the British Government.

The couple were refused entry at Luton airport on Friday, also on grounds their presence was not conducive to the public good. Mr Sellner and Ms Pettibone were detained and subsequently removed from Britain on Sunday.​ </s> A large crowd has gathered at Speaker’s Corner, in Hyde Park, London, where Tommy Robinson, a right-wing activist, who was the founder of the political movement English Defence League, has visited to deliver a speech on Freedom of Speech. Robinson has been a vocal citric of Islamist ideology, as well as the EU policy of mass migration. Robinson has been accused of holding extreme views by a portion of the media. </s> Rally follows ban of former EDL leader Tommy Robinson from Twitter over ‘hateful conduct’

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Thousands marched through London under the banner of free speech on Sunday after Tommy Robinson, a former leader of the far-right English Defence League, was permanently banned from Twitter.

Protesters flying national flags and holding placards decrying limits to free expression rallied at Whitehall after marching through central London from Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park, a location seen as emblematic of free speech that has been the scene of several recent far-right rallies.



Secret Facebook page reveals violence at heart of forum for ‘football fans’ Read more

Robinson called for the demonstration last week in response to Twitter’s decision to ban him for “hateful conduct” after he posted a message saying: “Islam promotes killing people.”

He and several prominent rightwing figures addressed the 2,000-3,000 attendees. Robinson told the crowd: “We couldn’t have done this three years ago, we couldn’t have done this four years ago. We are now mainstream.”

Other speakers included the leader of Ukip, Gerard Batten, the Vice magazine co-founder Gavin McInnes, the YouTube personality Sargon of Akkad, Anne Marie Waters of the political party For Britain and the former Breitbart senior editor Milo Yiannopoulos.



Lines of police with riot vans separated the protesters from several hundred counter-protesters demonstrating against what they saw as a far-right movement.

As the crowds, swelled by support from the Democratic Football Lads Alliance (DFLA), an umbrella group for football ultras, turned from Piccadilly into Whitehall, they chanted Robinson’s name.

Paul Stevenson, 42, from Harrow, said he was marching to “protect freedom of speech”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Democratic Football Lads Alliance and For Britain were some of the supporters of the demonstration. Photograph: Penelope Barritt//REX/Shutterstock

“It’s to protest against all the censorship that’s going on, political correctness, cultural Marxism and attacks on the white, Christian culture, not just in this country but across Europe,” he added.

Numbers dwindled throughout the lengthy Whitehall march, while the atmosphere was unthreatening.



In his rally speech, Robinson said: “The people of this country have been silenced for 20-30 years with the tag of racists. They have managed to silence people so that they are too scared to speak up when they see things that are wrong.

“They now realise that that tag is dead: no one cares anymore with being labelled racists.”

Yiannopoulos told the crowd: “Truth and righteousness are behind you. You are the vanguard, you are the dark nights, the first men and women to proudly stand with your heads above the parapet, caring nothing for the bullets that come your way and I salute you.

“I saw what happened when Nick Griffin went on Question Time, in America when genuine racists [appear on television] ... When those people are exposed to the harsh light of day, I believe that sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

Carl Benjamin, whose alias is Sargon of Akkad, said the protest was against “totalitarianism, identity politics and Islamism, which is really the same thing.”

“Those protesting against them were only in favour of ‘curated speech’,” Benjamin added.

The collapse of the BNP and EDL has made the far right deadlier | Matthew Collins Read more

On the other side of the lines, Freddi Hyde-Thompson, 28, from London, was shocked to find the counter-protesters outnumbered. “It’s really worrying ,” he said. “This cannot come to London and there be more of them than there are of us.”

Hyde-Thompson saw the protesters’ claims of support for free speech as a contradiction. “If their freedom of speech is going to rub out other people’s freedom of speech then they’ve got no point. If they want to ban certain religions, that speaks for itself.”

Among those watching the speakers and videos was Fatima, a black Muslim woman who would not give her full name.

“I’m here for freedom of speech,” she said, adding that she did not feel threatened. “It’s okay, I’m in my element; I don’t really care, this is England. There’s a guy with an infidels shirt right in front or me, I don’t know how he would react to me. This is a bit awkward for all of us.” </s> Tommy Robinson, the founder of the far-right English Defence League (EDL), has been jailed for 13 months for contempt of court.

The 35-year-old’s sentence can be revealed after a judge lifted reporting restrictions on the case on Tuesday.

Robinson was arrested on Friday after broadcasting an hour-long video over Facebook from outside Leeds Crown Court. In the video, he made comments that risked causing a trial to collapse.

Robinson pleaded guilty to contempt of court. He was arrested, charged and sentenced within five hours.

A court order is in place to prevent any reporting of the details of the trial in question. Another court order preventing reporting of Robinson’s arrest and the subsequent court proceedings was lifted on Tuesday after a challenge by Leeds Live and the London Independent.

The restriction was put in place temporarily to prevent reporting on the Robinson case from prejudicing the outcome of the first trial. It was lifted after a judge heard submissions that Robinson’s case was being widely discussed on social media. Right-wing activists claimed that the restriction amounted to state censorship.

In the video, Robinson attempted to film defendants entering the court and spoke about the case. The video was viewed more than 250,000 times.

Robinson’s arrest provoked protests in Whitehall on Saturday, which could not be reported by the media until now.

Supporters were seen carrying placards reading “#FreeTommy” and shouting “Shame on you”. – Guardian </s> This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Tommy Robinson, the founder of the far-right English Defence League, has been jailed for 13 months for contempt of court.

The 35-year-old’s sentence can be revealed after a judge lifted reporting restrictions on the case on Tuesday. The case had been widely discussed on social media, where rightwing activists claimed that the restrictions amounted to state censorship.

Robinson was arrested on Friday after broadcasting an hour-long video over Facebook from outside Leeds crown court. In the video he made comments that risked causing a trial to collapse.

Robinson pleaded guilty to contempt of court. He was arrested, charged and sentenced within five hours.

A court order is in place to prevent any reporting of the details of the trial in question. Another court order preventing reporting of Robinson’s arrest and the subsequent court proceedings was lifted on Tuesday after a challenge by Leeds Live and the Independent.

The restriction was put in place temporarily to prevent reporting on the Robinson case prejudicing the outcome of the first trial. It was lifted after a judge heard submissions that the order was already being widely violated by members of the public online.

Robinson attempted to film defendants entering the court and spoke about the case. The video was viewed more than 250,000 times.

Robinson’s arrest provoked protests in Whitehall on Saturday. Supporters were seen carrying placards reading “#FreeTommy” and shouting “shame on you”. A change.org petition calling for his release had received nearly 500,000 signatures by Tuesday afternoon.

Last year Robinson was given a suspended sentence for committing contempt during a rape trial in Canterbury, after he attempted to film the defendants. He had been told that he would go to prison if he broke the law again.

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, was sentenced to 10 months for contempt of court and a further three months for breaching the terms of the previous suspended sentence.

Robinson’s supporters had posted online that his arrest was an infringement of his freedom of speech. On Sunday Donald Trump Jr, the US president’s son, retweeted one of Robinson’s supporters, adding: “Don’t let America follow in those footsteps.”

The Dutch far-right opposition leader Geert Wilders posted a video on Twitter, filmed from outside the British embassy in The Hague, describing Robinson’s prison sentence as “an absolute disgrace”.

He accused the judge of issuing a gagging order and said that freedom of speech was being violated all over Europe. “The lights of freedom are going out,” he said. “The authorities are trying to silence us.”
Lutz Bachmann, the founder of the German nationalist group Pegida, is detained and prevented from speaking at a free speech rally at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park, London, at which activist Tommy Robinson is also speaking.