World
Oxford Union to host banned US commentators via livestream after UK denies them entry
Two anti-Israel American commentators who were denied entry to the UK will address an Oxford Union event via livestream instead, organizers said Thursday, justifying the move in the name of freedom of speech.
Earlier this week, Britain blocked Cenk Uygur, a left-wing Turkish-American media personality, and his nephew, Hasan Piker, a US left-wing commentator and influencer, from entering the country to speak at events.
The pair were to address the Oxford Union, a debating society based in the university city of Oxford and whose members primarily come from the university.
They will instead participate in the event via livestream on Saturday, June 6, the UK’s Jewish News outlet reported.
“This event will not be cancelled,” said the president of the Oxford Union Arwa Elrayess. “The Union will ensure this discussion takes place. Free speech does not require a visa.”
“The Oxford Union was founded on one principle: that ideas are challenged through debate, not silenced by decree,” she said. “We have never turned a speaker away because of their political beliefs, nor have we sought a permission slip from the state. We will not start now.”
Piker has compared Zionists to Nazis and called Orthodox Jews “inbred.” According to a report from The Times, the decision to ban Uygur was believed to be based on concerns that he would aggravate antisemitism. The newspaper noted that he has in the past repeated “classic antisemitic tropes,” including claiming that Israel controls America, and accused Israel of genocide.
Elrayess, the first person of Palestinian origin to become president of the union, is facing calls to resign after it emerged she had told other students that the Hamas October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel was “proportional” and that the Palestinian terror group would be celebrated “as heroes.” Elrayess made the remarks last September in a private WhatsApp group to students who were to start studying Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford, The Telegraph newspaper reported on Tuesday.
During a discussion about the war in Gaza, Elrayess reportedly told the roughly 100 other members of the group, “I think the severity of resistance is often proportional to the severity of oppression.”
When another member challenged her remark, she doubled down, saying, “Some would argue it’s less than proportional. Have you seen what Israel has put Palestinians through for decades???”
She also said that Hamas “are going to be heroes” and that “We’ll see how things unfold as time passes.”
The October 7 attack killed 1,200 people amid widespread massacres of civilians, violent rape, and the abduction of 251 people, including children, who were taken as hostages to the Gaza Strip. The attack triggered a devastating war in Gaza that has killed some 70,000 people, over half of them civilians.
In a statement to The Telegraph Elrayess said, “My messages are in an informal register and not written as a legal brief or a public statement, but I welcome the opportunity to clarify the context, the factual basis, and what I was and was not arguing.”
She claimed that during the discussion she “expressly stated in my messages that my comments were not an endorsement of violence or an attempt to say it is ‘right’ – this was a theoretical description of the structural context of the conflict, explaining why violence is tragically unsurprising given decades of occupation, blockade, rape, torture, displacement, ethnic cleansing and genocide.”
An Oxford University spokesman told the newspaper, “The university has established policies and procedures for considering concerns when they are raised by students or staff. We do not comment on individual students.”
A statement from the President, Arwa Elrayess: pic.twitter.com/3daG29vZtY
— Oxford Union (@OxfordUnion) June 1, 2026
The Campaign Against Antisemitism demanded that Elrayess be removed.
“Any effort to excuse or explain it away should disqualify someone not only from being the President of the Oxford Union – one of the most prestigious positions at one of the UK’s most elite institutions – but also should render them unfit from holding any position at all,” it said in a statement.
“The University of Oxford must take action to protect its students from extremists and the police should investigate some of these comments, which we are raising with our lawyers.”
Meanwhile, Uygur and Piker will not be speaking at another event they were scheduled to take part in, SXSW London, according to the report.
“We are aware that Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker are unable to travel to the UK following a decision by the Home Office,” a spokesman said. “They will therefore not be participating in the SXSW London program this year.”
