Heathrow campaigner refused entry to US
01.10.11
Anti-Heathrow expansion campaigner John Stewart was barred from entering the US. He took a flight to New York to take part in a lecture tour, but was escorted off a plane by armed guards when it landed at JFK, questioned for around six hours then sent back to London on the next available flight.
Mr Stewart, 62, who heads the anti-airport expansion group HACAN Clearskies and led the campaign against the third runway at Heathrow airport, was believed to have fallen foul of the US's strict visa entry requirements because he planned to spend a month travelling across the country campaigning on an Aviation Justice Express tour, sharing stories of how activists triumphed at Heathrow.
In a statement released yesterday, Mr Stewart said: ‘What seemed to concern [the authorities] was that I would be discussing, as part of my talk, the role that peaceful, non-violent civil disobedience played in the Heathrow Campaign. I wouldn’t be able to explain the campaign without doing so. In any case, it is completely legitimate to discuss the role of an activity which has featured so heavily in so many historical campaigns, from the American Civil Rights Movement, to the Suffragettes’ fight for the right of women to vote in the UK.’
US organisers plan to stick to the schedule and do most of the lectures / meetings with Mr Stewart via Skype, as has been arranged with another invited speaker, Scottish climate activist Dan Glass from direct action group Plane Stupid, who, amongst other things, tried to superglue himself to then prime minister Gordon Brown and certainly would not have been allowed in the US!
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