Activist French Farmer Bove Denied Entry to US
Date: 10-Feb-06
Country: USA
Author: Christian Wiessner
Bove told Reuters he arrived at New York's John F Kennedy International Airport with a valid US entry visa Wednesday afternoon but was detained for several hours and returned to Paris.
"They took my passport from me and said 'You're not allowed to come in for all the things you've done over the years, for speaking out,"' Bove said from France in a telephone interview.
Bove had been scheduled to speak Thursday and Friday in New York at an international conference on globalisation and labor. Organizers of the conference of academics and trade unionists included Cornell University's Global Labor Institute.
A French foreign ministry spokesman said Bove made a "mistake in understanding" when he responded to a question on an immigration form by saying he did not have a criminal record. Bove thought the question referred only to the US justice system, the spokesman said.
Janet Rapaport, a spokeswoman for US Customs and Border Protection in New York, confirmed Bove was refused entry but declined to specify why.
"The burden is on the visitor to prove that he or she is admissible. In this case, Mr. Bove did not meet that requirement," Rapaport said without elaborating.
Bove said he was surprised at being turned back because he has visited the United States several times, most recently in 2005.
The Frenchman rose to fame in the late 1990s for denouncing agricultural free trade and genetically modified food, and spent six weeks in jail in early 2003 for smashing up a McDonald's restaurant. He was sentenced to four months in prison in November for destroying a field of genetically modified corn in southern France.
Sean Sweeney, director of Cornell's labor institute, told the conference's opening session in reference to Bove's entry denial, "This speaks volumes about where the United States is in terms of free speech."
Bove was to deliver an address titled "The Struggle against Monsanto in Europe." US-based Monsanto Co is a major manufacturer of genetically modified seeds.
When asked why he felt he was denied entry to the United States, Bove told Reuters, "I think the big companies that want globalisation do not want discussions that are not in favour of globalisation and free trade."
Later, he told the conference via telephone, "It was very clear that they wanted to tell me that I was not allowed to come inside the US to make links with people in the US who are fighting against globalisation."
In December, Hong Kong denied Bove entry to attend a World Trade Organisation meeting.
