Candace Owens is set to travel to New Zealand after the government revoked her visa ban following neighboring Australia's move to ban the controversial commentator from entering the country over comments criticized as anti-Semitic. were allowed to enter the country.
Owens, a former Daily Wire podcaster with millions of followers on social media, was forced to leave New Zealand after government officials cited the “importance of free speech” in overturning an earlier ban. were allowed to enter the country.
New Zealand Immigration Services denied the entertainer a work permit in November, saying they cannot legally issue visas to people excluded from other countries.
Owens has appealed the decision to Deputy Immigration Minister Chris Penck, according to a Thursday statement from Penck's office.
The statement said Penck has discretion over visa decisions and granted the visa to Owens “after taking into account representations made to him, including the importance of free speech.”
Owens, who has denied being anti-Semitic after emerging as a critic of Israel, praised the decision.
She told the Post in a statement: “I'm excited to come to New Zealand to talk to people, share ideas and have meaningful conversations.”
“I commend the minister for defending the right of individuals to participate in political debate without fear of being silenced,” Owens said.
Mr Owens remains banned from entering Australia, where he was scheduled to appear before an audience who had paid tickets to hear his speech.
In October, Tony Burke, the Australian government's immigration minister, banned Owens from leaving the country because of her comments about the Nazis' gruesome experiments on Jewish concentration camp inmates during the Holocaust.
“From comments that downplay the impact of the Holocaust, [Nazi physician Josef] “Candace Owens has the ability to foment discord in almost every direction, from claiming that Mengele started slavery to Muslims,” Burke said.
Owens slammed Burke on his show last month. She denied that she was downplaying Mengele's experiments and said Australians were calling her out because “people don't want me to get in front of an audience” to talk about “deaths that are happening in Palestine”. He said he was shutting him out.
“They can't produce [videos of] I’m discussing Mengele because Mengele doesn’t exist,” Owens said on the show last month.
“If we're talking about someone so evil, why do we need a lie?”
Owens earlier this year after a public rift with the news site's co-founder Ben Shapiro, an ardent supporter of Israel, over the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack by Hamas. He left the Daily Wire.
with post wire
