ECAJ welcomes postponement of Youssef tour

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) has welcomed what it describes as a decision to deny a visa to Egyptian-American comedian Bassem Youssef, whose Australian tour has been postponed days before it was due to open.

Youssef says the postponement is the result of documentation he was unable to obtain in time, and the Department of Home Affairs has declined to comment.

ECAJ co-chief executive Peter Wertheim said conflict and war had always produced extremes of language, and that over the past three years Australia had seen how such language undermined the rights and freedoms of those it targeted.

“It is bad enough that we have people in Australia who engage in such language, regardless of their professed reasons. The last thing we need is visitors to Australia who would add to the problem,” Wertheim said.

He said the government had tightened the law in January to exclude granting visas to visitors with a record of engaging in hate, vilification or extremist conduct, and that the change would mean nothing unless consistently applied.