Australia has refused to allow right-wing content creator Candace Owens into the country for a planned speaking tour, with officials saying it wouldn’t serve the “national interest” to welcome the online provocateur.
“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,” Immigration Minister Tony Burke told Australian outlets over the weekend.
“Australia’s national interest is best served when Candace Owens is somewhere else.”
“Tickets to these events are selling for $100,” he added in The Sydney Morning Herald. “I hope she has a good refunds policy.”
Local leaders began pushing for Australia to reject her visa this summer, after Owens described stories about Nazi medical experiments as “propaganda.”
The Anti-Defamation Commission, a civil rights group, called the decision a “victory for truth.”
“Australia has no place for those who mock the suffering of genocide survivors and insult the memories of the 6 million Jews who perished,” chairman Dvir Abramovich told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“This is a line in the sand.”
The Independent has contacted Owens for comment.
Owens was set to conduct a November speaking tour in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide. She planned to address topics including including “freedom of speech” and “why Christ really is king,” according to an announcement video.
Following calls for her to be kept out of the country, Owens spoke to Sydney radio station 2GB and tried to downplay the controversy.
“It’s kind of incredible to think people could be so fearful of just speech and conversation,” she 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.”
In March, the conservative Daily Wire news outlet cut ties with Owens, following a string of online clashes with founder Ben Shapiro over the Israel-Hamas war as well as allegations she was antisemitic, after she claimed on her show that “secret Jewish gangs” run Hollywood and favorited a tweet about Jews supposedly drinking Christians’ blood.
