Gavin McInnes Denied a Visa to Tour Australia
Internet television personality and founder of the western male fraternal organization the Proud Boys Gavin McInnes has been denied a visa to tour Australia on character grounds by the Home Affairs Department according to a report by the ABC. It stated McInnes was advised by the department a few weeks back they were likely to block his visa application and the formal window for him to appeal closed today.
McInnes was scheduled to be part of the Deplorables Tour with Tommy Robinson and Milo Yiannopoulos in February 2019 hosted by Penthouse Australia. This was after McInnes own scheduled solo tour of Australia due in November was rolled into the Deplorables Tour.
There had been an intense media campaign against McInnes and Proud Boys since they were involved in a confrontation with Antifa outside a speaking event by McInness in New York. Nine Proud Boys are facing criminal charges and led to McInnes quitting the Proud Boys last week.
Most of this negative publicity involved fake news that the Proud Boys were an alt-right white nationalist group. A video went viral which took many of McInnes comedic routines out of context of him claiming the Proud Boys were a violent street gang.
This led petition being launched by Sudanese-Australian lawyer Nyadol Nyuon calling on McInness to be denied a visa. Labor’s Immigration spokesperson Shayne Nuemann had written to the Immigration Minister David Coleman to urge him to deny McInness entry.
Just yesterday the 81,000 name petition was delivered to Parliament House in Canberra which . Nyuon traveled to Canberra to deliver along with Indigenous activist Marcia Langton.
UPDATE:
Penthouse Australia Publisher Damien Coasts at the time of the publication of the ABC story had not been notified of a visa denial, and said that the visa application was never at an appeal level and that there was no appeal deadline for today. It was later confirmed by Penthouse they and the McInnss legal team had received an email from the Home Affairs Department at 5:23pm AEDT Friday evening.
FURTHER UPDATE:
Penthouse has accused the Home Affairs Department of leaking to the ABC about McInnes visa denial and has directed their legal team to refer the Department of Home Affairs to the Australian Federal Police alleging a blatant breach of privacy and policy.