The U.S. conservative political commentor Candace Owens was refused a visa to enter New Zealand for a speaking engagement because she had been banned from another country, immigration officials said Thursday.
News of the ruling came weeks after neighboring Australia also rejected her visa request, citing remarks in which she denied Nazi medical experimentation on Jews in concentration camps during World War II.
Owens is scheduled to speak at a series of events in several Australian cities and in Auckland, New Zealand, in February and March next year. Tickets remain on sale and there is no acknowledgement on the promoter’s website that she has been refused entry to both countries.
I don’t mind. Any country that would ban me personally based on my beliefs is one I wouldn’t want to be in anyway. Now if they’d ban people based on their country of origin, I think that’s painting with too broad a brush. We can’t trust all countries to use such nuance sometimes.