Speech Must Be Free

LONDON (AFP) – The government published a blacklist on Tuesday of people recently banned from the country including a Hamas lawmaker and a Jewish extremist, as well as anti-gay protestors and a far-right US talk show host.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she decided to publish the "name and shame" list -- which identifies 16 people banned since last October -- for the first time to clarify what behaviour Britain will not tolerate.
[...]
Hamas MP Yunis Al-Astal, Jewish extremist Mike Guzovsky, former Ku Klux Klan leader Stephen Donald Black and neo-Nazi Erich Gliebe are also on the list, as is controversial radio host Michael Alan Weiner, also known as Michael Savage.

Others blacklisted include homophobic US pastor Fred Waldron Phelps, as well as Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky, former leaders of a violent Russian skinhead gang which committed 20 racially motivated murders.

Seems to me that banning people who are known to incite criminal behavior is sensible.. but banning just because somebody engages in "hate speech" sets a very bad precedent. Very often.. those jackasses are a huge asset to the causes they rail against.

It would piss me off if accusing the religious assholes, like the Catholics, of being evil could be considered a banable offense.