Katie Hopkins Ship In Deep Trouble

While pro-am motormouth Katie Hopkins has been subjecting herself to the softball interview technique of her adoring Stateside hosts, the migrant-bashing expedition which she so happily endorsed on a recent trip to Sicily, but failed to join because the ship, the C-Star, had been detained by the authorities at Port Suez, has hit more trouble. And this time the trouble could stop this ill-advised expedition in its tracks.

Those who look in regularly on Zelo Street will recall the most unfortunate incident that affected the C-Star when it docked at the port of Famagusta in the Republic of Northern Cyprus (for some reason, the ship avoided the more mainstream south of the island). Here, it was discovered that the crew of a boat meant to be talking the movement of people to Europe had been doing a little of that itself.

Thus charges of people trafficking were levelled at the crew, but now the ship has set sail once more. The problem now is that the C-Star needs to make port to take on supplies, and this exercise has been a campaign that has progressed not necessarily to its advantage. The sticking point is that the locals in Tunisia, where the C-Star is now attempting to dock, saw the assembled racist bigotry coming.

As the Guardian has reported, “Tunisian fishermen have prevented a ship chartered by far-right anti-immigration activists from putting into port … Flying a Mongolian flag and manned by members of the extremist French-based Generation Identity group, the C-Star was was turned away from Zarzis harbour on Sunday night and is thought likely to try to dock at Sfax or Gabès on Monday”. And there was more.

“But the 40-metre (130ft) vessel faced determined resistance from Tunisian fishermen as it approached port. ‘If they come here, we’ll block the refuelling channel,’ Chamseddine Bourassine, a local fishermen’s leader, told Agence France-Presse … ‘It is the least we can do given what is happening out in the Mediterranean. Muslims and Africans are dying.’ A Zarzis port official said authorities there would ‘never let in racists’”.

It gets worse: “The Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights, a local NGO, said it would oppose any attempt by the C-Star to dock and take on fresh supplies of fuel, food and water in a Tunisian port”. And now the people at Hope Not Hate are urging that the authorities in the port of Sfax deny access to the C-Star.

The wording of the email that HnH are urging supporters to send to the authorities in Tunisia is to the point: “The crew aboard this ship have plans to engage in dangerous activity to disrupt the legitimate work of NGOs and that will endanger lives … It is critical that they are stopped from carrying out their life-threatening activity”.

Someone involved with the C-Star and its nasty little campaign seems not to have thought that people in North Africa might take exception to a bunch of racists endangering their fellow human beings. They know just what those people think about them now.

Meanwhile, Hatey Katie has been silent on her pals at sea. I wonder why.