Performer who has been repeatedly convicted in France for antisemitic remarks is due to play two shows but is likely to be deported

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

The controversial French comedian Dieudonné is being held at Hong Kong airport after flying in to give performances in the city, and his production company has said he is likely to be deported.

Dieudonné, who has been repeatedly convicted in France for antisemitic remarks, arrived in Hong Kong early on Thursday and was held by immigration officers, his lawyer Sanjay Mirabeau said.

It was not immediately clear why he was stopped or on what grounds he could be deported. The South China Morning Post reported that the French and Israeli consulates had made complaints about his planned shows.

Hong Kong’s immigration department said it would not comment on individual cases. However, in a statement it said it was “committed to upholding effective immigration control by denying the entry of undesirables”.

Mirabeau said there was no reason for the comedian to be detained. “His new show, In Peace, does not contain anything contrary to law. He speaks of plants, ecology,” the lawyer said.

Dieudonné’s company, Plume Productions, said he was being held with his children at the airport. “He will likely be deported in the coming hours,” it said in a statement.

The French consulate confirmed that Dieudonné had been held. “It’s a question of implementing immigration laws relevant to the Hong Kong authorities,” a consulate spokesman said.

The consulate said it had not asked the Hong Kong government to prevent Dieudonné from entering the city. But according to police sources cited by the Post, the consulate wrote a letter expressing concern over the visit, warning that it could trigger “a disturbance to public order”.

Hong Kong has a sizeable French community, with more than 12,000 French citizens registered by the consulate as living in the city.

Dieudonné, 49, who made his name in a double act with Jewish comedian Élie Semoun, is infamous for his quenelle hand gesture that looks like an inverted Nazi salute but which he insists is merely anti-establishment.

He has appeared before French courts over a string of comments that opponents say are bluntly racist, while supporters champion his right to free speech. In November, a Belgian court sentenced Dieudonné to two months in jail for incitement to hatred over alleged racist and antisemitic comments he made during a show.

Earlier the same month the European court of human rights ruled against Dieudonné in a separate case, deciding that freedom of speech did not protect “racist and antisemitic performances”. Dieudonné was challenging a fine he received from a French court in 2009 for inviting a Holocaust denier on stage. He was fined €10,000 (£7,600) for what that court referred to as “racist insults”.

In March a French court handed Dieudonné a two-month suspended sentence and fined him heavily for condoning terrorism after he suggested he sympathised with the attacks against the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket in Paris.

Dieudonné was due to give two performances of his new show on Thursday and Friday at Hong Kong’s Cyberport development.