Chris Brown was due to perform in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth in December as part of his One Hell of a Nite tour, but it was announced last night that his visa application to tour in Australia has been formally denied on character grounds, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has confirmed.
Brown pleaded guilty to attacking his then girlfriend, Rihanna, in 2009. Since his conviction, he has toured in Australia twice - in 2011 and 2012 - but on Friday night he was issued with a formal notice that his visa application would be denied. He now has 28 days to present a case as to why he should be granted a visa, after which a final decision will be made.
Newly appointed women's minister, Michaelia Cash, told the Guardian: “People need to understand if you are going to commit domestic violence and then you want to travel around the world, there are going to be countries that say to you, ‘You cannot come in because you are not of the character we expect in Australia,’ and certainly, without pre-empting the decision of the minister, I can assure you it is something that the minister is looking at.”
Cooke said the “high-profile example” of Brown having his visa denied was a “good sign of the times changing”.
An advocacy group called GetUp created an online petition this month calling for Brown to be banned from entering the country, saying: "If we stand by and do nothing while [Chris Brown] performs around the country [...] we are implicitly sending the message that if you brutally beat a woman, in a short amount of time you will be forgiven, or even celebrated."
Chris Brown isn't the first person to be banned from touring Australia on "character grounds". In July this year it was revealed that Tyler, The Creator had been denied entry and he was forced to cancel dates in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney in September as part of his Cherry Bomb world tour. The ban came off the back of a campaign by the feminist group Collective Shout, who had been pushing to revoke Tyler's visa since 2013 on the grounds that his lyrics promote violence and misogyny against women.
A spokeswoman for Brown’s touring company has so far offered: “No comment”.
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