Jewish groups demand extremist influencer Candace Owens’ visa be cancelled

Jewish groups are demanding the government bar extremist US provocateur Candace Owens from holding a speaking tour across Australia because of her conspiracy-tinged attacks on Jews and trans people.

Owens rose to prominence as a Donald Trump-aligned influencer and has claimed that Israel was founded by a “cult”, “secret Jewish gangs” operate in Hollywood and minimised Nazi atrocities. She told her 18 million online followers she is selling tickets to “electrifying evenings” in Australia in November.

Extreme right influencer Candace Owens is planning a speaking tour of Australia.Credit: Bloomberg

After questions from this masthead, the government said it could block her entry to Australia.

Owens, who recently said Trump was too moderate, has also made claims about a range of minority groups including trans people who she falsely said suffered “clinical insanity” and suggested could be responsible for a rise in mass shootings.

“There is no place in Australia for Candace Owens and her vile, divisive, and dangerous conspiracy theories,” wrote Zionist Federation of Australia leaders Jeremy Leibler and Alon Cassuto in a letter to Home Affairs and Immigration Minister Tony Burke seen by this masthead.

“Your government has rightfully expressed concern about the increasing embrace of extreme ideologies by Australians. Extremism, racism, bigotry, and antisemitism are unacceptable in any form, regardless of whether they originate from the far left or right.”

Coalition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan joined the federation’s calls, saying Labor should block her visa to avoid the spread of “hateful messages”. Burke, whose office was contacted for comment, can reject visas for people deemed “not of good character”.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said in a statement that he was taking the complaint seriously.

“I’ve always taken a hard line on hate speech. As soon as I heard about this visit, I asked the Department to organise a brief and spoke to Jillian Segal, the antisemitism envoy.

“When the brief is sent up to me, I will act on it immediately.”

The planned tour was announced days before ASIO director-general Mike Burgess raised Australia’s terror threat level as “twisted” ideologies spurred by the war in Gaza normalised the idea of political violence.

A spokeswoman for Owens’ tour promoters, Doyen PR, said the Coalition’s calls were hypocritical because the party had allowed in “far more controversial” people such as alt-right influencer Lauren Southern and British politician Nigel Farage.

“This was done under the guise of free speech, but it seems when the speech isn’t consistent with the Coalition’s narrative, people need to be cancelled,” the spokeswoman said. “What we have here is a black woman of faith who has the temerity to question the conflict in Israel; a conflict which has been widely questioned and in some circumstances criticised even by our own government.”

“It is important to note that Ms Owens has never incited violence or been cancelled by social media for breaching community standard, and everything she has said has been in her capacity as a commentator and as an author.”

Australia previously denied visas for prominent Holocaust denier David Icke and far-right figures Milo Yiannopoulos and Gavin McInnes.

Owens came to prominence as the communications director of the pro-Trump group Turning Point America and is part of a network of online figures who often boost each other’s content, which includes avowed misogynist Andrew Tate and white supremacist Nick Fuentes.

In July, she said on her podcast show that the stories of Nazi physician Josef Mengele’s experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz were “bizarre propaganda” while describing the Holocaust as “an ethnic cleansing [that] almost took place”.

Owens left the Daily Wire, the website founded by conservative Jewish commentator Ben Shapiro, in March.

“I think she’s been absolutely disgraceful,” Shapiro said of her comments months before her departure. “I think that her faux-sophistication on these particular issues has been ridiculous.”

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