Home > Cat Stevens Denied Entry: Former rocker on U.S. no-fly list

Cat Stevens Denied Entry: Former rocker on U.S. no-fly list

by Open-Publishing - Thursday 23 September 2004
9 comments

Edito


by ALEX MAR

Yusuf Islam, who scored several Top Ten hits in the Seventies as Cat Stevens
before leaving the business to devote himself to Islam, was denied entry into
the U.S. yesterday, because his name was on several border protection watch lists.
Islam’s plane, en route to Washington from London, was rerouted to Bangor, Maine,
where the artist was detained for questioning.

After recording rock classics like "Wild World" and "Moonshadow," he quit the
music industry in 1977, adopted a strict Muslim lifestyle and changed his name.

Controversy followed him: after a lecture in 1989, Islam was quoted as supporting the fatwa against Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie, alienating many fans and causing 10,000 Maniacs to pull their cover of the Stevens’ hit "Peace Train" from their album In My Tribe. (Islam denied ever making the statement.) In 1990 and again in 2000, he was held at a Jerusalem airport and refused entry into Israel, accused of donating tens of thousands of dollars to Hamas on a visit to that country in 1988.

In the summer of 2000, eager to "reconnect" with his fans and in conjunction with the re-release of his catalog, Islam returned to the States on a speaking tour. "I enjoy visiting the U.S.," he told Rolling Stone at the time. There is a sense of optimism and openness. I feel that Americans would like their lives to be more spiritual — I read somewhere that eighty-two percent believe in God - but . . . the pursuit of wealth and commercialism often ends up distracting them from their higher purpose."

Regarding how popular perception of him had changed over the years, he added, "I would like those who followed my music to know my lifestyle and to know me as I am today without the rumors and prejudices that were created about me."

Islam will be put on a return flight to London today.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/6511671/catstevens?pageid=rs.NewsArchive&pageregion=mainRegion&rnd=1095890974850&has-player=unknown

Forum posts

  • Its a free country as ong as you are the mirror image of this administration. Its a free country as long as you are parroting the propaganda from this administration. Its a free country as long as you don’t speak out about this administration. And its a free country as long as you don’t look too hard at the facts.

    • Well I’m sure he smoked pot and probably inhaled. Maybe the CIA has found some secret messages in the lyrics of his songs. Did McCarthy die yet? Do we have a black list for Muslims?

    • I’m sure Rummy Wolfie Jr Condi, and Shit Stainy are all terrified of that big bad Cat Stevens, what a bunch of cowards.....

  • I would like to see Cat visit Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan. They will welcome him with open arms. He would be worth a bundle in ransom money. Why choose the US to visit? We are the heartland of evil. He should be taking his daughter to a nice lovely country such as those mentioned above. He should be teaching his daughter the true values of his chosen culture. Hide yourself so that no heathen may gaze upon you.

    Don’t you think that he might be visiting to gain more wealth from the poor Americans who gave him his fame and popularity? I am sure it was not to sow the seeds of destruction but to gather the money of American to further his nice life style in England.

    Maybe he should purchase a nice little house in Baghdad so that he can taste reality, not the Nirvana that England and the United States have provided for him for the last 30 years.

    Get a life England. The tabloids are like soap operas. They have no touch with reality and the real world. I believe that if I choose a culture and religion to follow I would be better served going where I should be loved and adored rather than to the den of Satan which could only harm his daughter by the viewing of all of this culture we have created. Why would you bring your daughter to the place that is supposedly the most hated and decadent place on this planet?

    Poor old Cat. I really did like his music. Maybe he should write for Tarkan. III

  • If nothing else, he should be deported for having subjected the public to his sappy music.

    • Obviously there is nothing more dangerous than a peace activist to this administration. Look at how peace activists are now being kept from getting permits to march in the streets, instead they are herded like animals to designated areas far away from events where they might be overheard in the t.v. reports. So far freedom to assemble has been taken away, freedom of speech is gone, freedom of movement, and freedom of the press is also a thing of the past. What will be taken away next by Herr Bush?

    • So far 5,000 people have been arrested and placed in concentration camps by this administration, and so far Herr Ashcroft has not been able to convict a single one..... the only ones being affected by this "Patriot" Act are innocent people.

      But just like in Hitler’s Third Reich you don’t have to have done anything really, you just have to be politically available to be made an example out of.

      This thing with Cat Stevens is a good example. And all of those who think he should have been denied entry into the U.S. because he is a terror threat are good candidates for organizations like Hitler’s Brown Shirts, his S.S. or his Gestopo or Bush’s Homeland Security (it even sounds like the Nazis). You are the people who are going to bring America down, you make this so called democracy a laughing stock.

      Who need terrorists to destroy America we have Bush supporters for that.