Britain Identifies 16 Barred From Entering U.K.

LONDON — Eager to showcase new border controls aimed at keeping advocates of extremist views out of the country, the British government published what it called a name-and-shame list on Tuesday. It was the first time the government had publicly identified any of the 101 people who had been placed on an exclusion list since new powers to bar people who were deemed undesirables were adopted in 2005.
The list, which named 16 people, covered only those who had been barred from entering Britain in the past six months, and it shielded the identity of 6 others also barred during the period on the grounds that naming them would be contrary to “the public interest.” The Home Office said one of the purposes of publishing the list was to draw attention to the increased use of the government’s barring powers, which had more than doubled since the 2005 restrictions were further tightened last year.
Eight of the 16 named were Muslim clerics, writers and political advocates identified in brief sketches on the Home Office Web site as “engaging in unacceptable behavior” by “seeking to foment, justify or glorify terrorist violence.” Several on the list were Americans linked by the Home Office to right-wing extremist groups that promote hatred against racial or religious groups, or against homosexuals.
The eight Muslim men named included Yunis al-Astal, a Hamas lawmaker in Gaza; Safwat Hijazi, an Egyptian cleric; and Samir al-Quntar, a former member of the Palestine Liberation Front who served nearly 30 years in an Israeli prison for his part in the killing of four Israelis, including a 4-year-old girl, in 1979.
The list also included Nasr Javed, a Pakistan-based commander of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant group that has been linked to terrorist attacks.
The others named on the list were Abdullah Qadri al-Ahdal, a Saudi Arabian religious scholar; Wadgy Abd el-Hamied Mohamed Ghoneim, a militant, Egyptian-born cleric who fled California to return to his homeland in 1994 amid a deportation battle; Abdul Ali Musa, an American-born Muslim cleric who served prison time in the United States; and Amir Siddique, a militant Pakistani cleric.
The Americans on the list included a San Francisco-based radio talk-show host, Michael A. Weiner, known to radio audiences as Michael Savage, who was described by the Home Office as “seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts and fostering hatred which might lead to inter-community violence.”
Mr. Savage said he was considering filing a lawsuit against Jacqui Smith, the British home secretary, for defamation, according to WorldNetDaily.com, a conservative Web site. “She’s linking me with mass murderers who are in prison for killing Jewish children on buses?” the Web site reported that he said. “For my speech?”
Also barred were the Rev. Fred Phelps, a Baptist pastor based in Topeka, Kansas, where he is a leading spokesman for the Westboro Baptist Church, and his daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper. The Home Office said they were barred for “fostering hatred.” Mr. Phelps is known for his antigay positions.
Another American listed was Eric Gliebe, a former boxer and Ohio-based Web-radio broadcaster who was identified as “provoking others to commit serious crime and fostering racial hatred” by vilifying “certain ethnic groups.” Also barred was Stephen Donald Black, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan who was said to have set up a Florida-based “racist Web site,” Stormfront, and to have used it to promote views that the barring notice said could lead to “inter-community violence” in Britain.
Also on the list was an American-born activist, Michael Guzofsky, a former leader of a militant Jewish group that had been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States State Department.
Although Britain had traditionally used common-law powers to bar entry to people considered undesirable because of their extreme views, the grounds for doing so were extended and codified in the aftermath of the terrorist bombings on the London transit system on July 7, 2005, which killed 56 people, including the four bombers.
Last year, the government further tightened the controls, introducing what it called “a presumption in favor of exclusion” that placed the burden of proof on the barred individuals to show that they had “repudiated their previous extremist views” and posed no threat to public order.
Ms. Smith said in a television interview the list would serve to notify people of the “values and standards” Britain stands for, and “if you can’t live by the rules that we live by, we should exclude you from this country.”
But the action stirred protests from British Muslim groups. Inayat Bunglawala, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, told the BBC that people should be allowed to enter Britain regardless of their views.
The list also included two Russian skinheads, Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky, who were convicted for racially motivated attacks that killed 19 people.

By JOHN F. BURNS
Published: May 5, 2009