Swedish climate academic Andreas Malm said on Friday that Britain had refused him entry, days before he was due to share a platform with a co-founder of Palestine Action, which is banned in the UK as a terrorist organisation.
Malm, who teaches at Lund University and is best known for his book ‘How to Blow Up a Pipeline’, which argues that radical action is needed to stop fossil fuel extraction, told BBC Radio 4 that the Home Office had informed him his presence in the UK was “not conducive to the public good”. He said it gave no further explanation.
The Home Office, Britain’s interior ministry, said it did not comment on individual cases.
Malm said he suspected the decision was linked to an event a socialist magazine had organised for next Wednesday, where he was to appear with Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori and talk about the war in Iran. He said he had never publicly endorsed, promoted or funded the group.
Asked whether the ban might be connected to his earlier description of Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel as “an act of liberation”, Malm said it could be.
An outspoken critic of Israel and a strong supporter of the Palestinian movement, Malm said he had been travelling to Britain for decades for his scientific work, archival research and conferences, and that this was the main reason for this visit too. The ban, he said, meant “I am banned from doing my work as an intellectual, as an academic.”
Palestine Action’s proscription under terrorism laws, which made voicing support for the group a criminal offence, is due to be challenged at Britain’s Supreme Court next week.
Malm’s case follows other disputes over who may enter or work in Britain. Earlier this month, Irish novelist Sally Rooney said her books would no longer be sold in Britain because she planned to use her royalties to support Palestine Action. In June, Britain blocked left-wing Turkish-American media personality Cenk Uygur and his nephew Hasan Piker from entering to speak at events.
Britain has also imposed travel bans on far-right Israeli ministers and barred Israelis from attending a London defence studies college.
(With information from Reuters/Featured image by Code Rood-Flickr)
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