Many of you will remember
the story from the New Mexican which described the respected journalist, Robert Fisk being refused entry to the US because his paper's were not in order. No doubt there were discussions here on DU about it. Well, it's just not true! Writing today in The Independent, Fisk sets the record straight.
Robert Fisk: The real story behind those rumours that the Americans banned me from the US
This is the story of the internet, a passport and a chocolate mousse. The first told lies, the second was useless and the third never eaten.
It started when I set off for Santa Fe to read from my new book on the Middle East. There was to be an interview with that iconic leftist radio host, Amy Goodman, and an awful lot of people booked to listen to Bob of Arabia. US immigration cheerfully ran my little red passport through their computer scanner. It's full of visas from pariah countries, but this didn't seem to trouble the lady from Homeland Security. What worried her was something different. "It doesn't scan," she said. No, I said nonchalantly.I was sent into a large room full of angry would-be visitors to the United States. A tall man scanned my irises and took my fingerprints. So that's that, I thought. Not so. Forty-five minutes later, another lady from Homeland Security - I still don't like that word "homeland", with its dodgy echo of the German "Heimat". I only needed 36 hours in the States, I said. To give a lecture without a fee. Hundreds of people would be present.
<snip>
"I'll see my supervisor to see if we can get you in," she cheerfully announced. Long live America, I breathed. Until she came back and told me her supervisor would not let me travel. The lads and lassies who are supposed to stop Osama bin Laden attacking America were now making sure I couldn't read from a book in Santa Fe.
<snip>
Then came the blow. One of the organisers had told the New Mexian - a newspaper I would now like to buy and close down - that the US authorities had refused me entry because my "papers were not in order." Which was true enough, up to a point. But within hours, the internet - a vile institution which I do not use - was awash with stories that the United States had banned my entry to America because of my critical articles about the Bush administration. This rubbish followed me around the world.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article321389.ece(The online article is unfortunately pay to view, but I've transcribed the relevent paragraphs from the deadtree edition.)
So now we know. Fisk wasn't "banned" from the US at all, he was simply refused entry. And he was refused entry not because his papers were out of order but because his passport "didn't scan".
on edit: I missed a couple of (insignificant) words in the transcription.
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