Activist French farmer Bove denied entry to US

February 10, 2006

By Christian Wiessner

NEW YORK (Reuters) - French farmer Jose Bove, a prominent protester against globalization and junk food, said on Thursday he was denied entry to the United States and speculated large corporations were behind the move.

Bove told Reuters he arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport with a valid U.S. entry visa on Wednesday afternoon but was detained for several hours and later 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.

He had been scheduled to speak Thursday and Friday in New York at an international conference of academics and trade unionists. Organizers of the conference, on globalization and labor, included Cornell University's Global Labor Institute.

U.S. immigration officials did not return calls seeking comment, but the French foreign ministry said he had been refused for a mistaken response to a question about his criminal record.

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.

A conference spokesman said calls to the U.S. Immigration Department and to the Department of Homeland Security by the group and U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton's office failed to secure an explanation for Bove's expulsion.

Dr. Sean Sweeney, director of Cornell's labor institute, told the conference's opening session, "This speaks volumes about where the United States is in terms of free speech."

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 U.S. justice system, the spokesman said.

On Friday, Bove was to deliver an address titled "The Struggle Against Monsanto in Europe." U.S.-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 globalization do not want discussions that are not in favor of globalization 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 U.S. to make links with people in the U.S. who are fighting against globalization."

In December, Hong Kong denied Bove entry to attend a World Trade Organization meeting.