Push to keep Piker out of Australia

The Anti-Defamation Commission has called on Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke to refuse or cancel any visa held by American streamer Hasan Piker, who is billed to appear at a youth-oriented creator convention in Melbourne in January.

Piker, who broadcasts as Hasan Abi, is listed among more than 100 guests at iSTREAM, an inaugural event at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre on January 23 and 24.

Organisers have promoted it as a family-friendly convention, with a lineup that also includes TommyInnit, Pokimane, Chloe Ting, LazarBeam and Abbie Chatfield. According to the ADC, children of any age can attend with a parent and teenagers from 15 can attend alone.

The ADC’s call follows a similar demand from Shadow Home Affairs Minister Jonathan Duniam, who told the Daily Mail that Piker had made many obscene and notorious remarks on sensitive subjects including 9/11, Hamas and Israel.

Duniam said that if the Albanese Government had already granted Piker a visa, it was hard to understand how, and argued that any clear-headed assessment of his record would have to invoke the character provisions of the Migration Act.

ADC chairman Dr Dvir Abramovich pointed to the Minister’s own record.

“Minister Burke has written the rule book himself, banning Candace Owens, Kanye West and Sammy Yahood for spreading hate,” he said. “Same rule. Same Minister. Same answer. Ban him.”

He said Piker had told millions of young followers he would vote for Hamas over Israel “every single time”, had said it did not matter whether rapes occurred on October 7, and had described former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as “a pretty brilliant person”.

Dr Abramovich reserved his strongest words for remarks Piker made in August about American Jews.

During an August 20 livestream, Piker displayed a photo of Michigan state senator Jeremy Moss, a Jewish Democrat, and said that if American Jews kept presenting themselves as singularly invested in Israel, someone would eventually take action against them rather than against Israel.

“That is what a threat sounds like when it wears a smile,” Dr Abramovich said. “We buried fifteen people at Bondi. We have learned the hard way what happens when sentences like that go unanswered.”

He also called on the organisers to drop Piker before tickets go on sale.

“You have seven days before you start selling tickets to Australian teenagers to see this man. Use them.”

In June, the British Home Office cancelled the travel permits of Piker and his uncle, The Young Turks founder Cenk Uygur, on the grounds that their presence may not be conducive to the public good. The pair had been due to speak at SXSW London and the Oxford Union.

Piker called the decision objectionable and disgusting, and said it pointed to the Western world heading in a fascist direction.

Dr Colin Rubenstein, executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Committee, says Hasan Piker has a long and documented record of deeply divisive rhetoric, including inflammatory and antisemitic comments denigrating Jews, as well as rhetoric deeply sympathetic to Hamas, and to Hezbollah.

“He has already been denied a visa to visit the UK. At a time when antisemitism in Australia is under scrutiny via a Royal Commission in the wake of the country’s worst terrorist massacre, we would hope and expect that such a divisive and hateful figure would not be allowed to visit Australia. What’s more, we hope that, even if Piker speaks by video link, authorities will be watching to ensure he does not violate Australia’s anti-terrorism and racial vilification laws, with organisers held accountable if he does so.”

The Australian booking is not Piker’s first brush with local controversy. In August, AIJAC executive director Colin Rubenstein criticised the ABC’s decision to interview him on Planet America, calling it deeply troubling but not surprising.

It is not known whether Piker has applied for, or been granted, an Australian visa.