Australia is keeping a controversial American anti-abortion activist in custody at the airport for at least one more day, after he entered the country on Thursday with a visa that was cancelled earlier this week.
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Newman – who was engaged to speak at a Right To Life convention this week – wrote in his post that the Australian government had revoked his visa “in midflight”.
The federal court in Melbourne says the matter will not be heard on Thursday afternoon.
Miss Purton said Mr Newman’s work exposing Planned Parenthood’s sale of baby organs after performing abortions had angered the pro-choice movement in Australia.
Newman had a five-city itinerary of speaking nights lined up courtesy of local anti-abortion group Right to Life Australia, including an event at NSW Parliament House, but news of his tour was met with a swift and vast backlash from figures like Queensland Labor MP Terri Butler, NSW Greens MLA Mehreen Faruqi and feminist group Destroy the Joint.
A prominent anti-abortion activist with close ties to the current video campaign targeting Planned Parenthood is set to be deported from Australia, after the country’s highest court concluded that his extreme rhetoric could pose a “threat to public order” by potentially encouraging violence against women and doctors.
Justice Nettle said it had not been proven that Mr Newman had advocated the death penalty for doctors who perform abortion, as had been alleged, and there was no evidence that the anti-abortion protests he had been involved with in the United States had been violent. Newman will also have to pay court costs. But on Monday his visa was cancelled per the urging of the head of the Australian Labor party, Terry Butler.
USA airline officials prevented him from boarding a plane in Denver bound for Melbourne via Los Angeles on Wednesday night and told him to contact the Australian Embassy.
His wife Melissa Newman told 7:30 the Australian Government should let him go. In a Facebook post on Tuesday, he sounded the alarm to his supporters that his visa had been revoked while he was on a flight to Los Angeles. “I would be more than grateful to come to Australia to raise awareness about domestic violence”, he said.
He said Mr Newman had been treated in the same way as anyone else who arrived illegally.
Image: taken from Troy Newman’s Facebook, photoshopped by us.
He begins his letter with the heading “Political Prisoner 1-5BVUG6N”, which states in part, “I’m being held as a political prisoner in Melbourne, AU by Minister Peter Dutton“.
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Newman’s son, Daniel Mariotti, slammed the court decision via social media.
