British lawmaker George Galloway has been blocked from visiting Canada because of his support of Hamas, which is banned here, the Canadian immigration ministers office said Friday. "Im sure Galloway has a large Rolodex of friends in regimes elsewhere in the world willing to roll out the red carpet for him," Alykhan Velshi, spokesman for Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, told AFP.
"Canada, however, wont be one of them," he said in an email. Galloway was to give a speech in Toronto at the end of the month, but has been denied entry over his opposition to Canadian troops in Afghanistan, said Britains Sun newspaper. Velshi said Galloway was deemed inadmissible to Canada due to national security concerns.
It was an "operational decision" by border security officials "based on a number of factors, not only those mentioned in the Sun piece," he said. Such a decision could be overturned by ministerial order, but it is not warranted in this case, he said. "Were going to uphold the law, not give special treatment to a street-corner Cromwell who brags about giving financial support to Hamas, a terrorist organisation banned in Canada," Velshi said. This week, Galloway travelled to Gaza at the head of a humanitarian convoy. He praised the Palestinian "resistance" and condemned Israels 22-day offensive launched in December, in which 1,300 Palestinians died, as "genocidal aggression." The British MP also donated thousands of dollars and dozens of vehicles to the Hamas-run government in the Gaza Strip.