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No, they're a necessary part of modern life and they should not be able to arbitrarily refuse service. This should be done under government supervision.
The same way you are entitled to health care, groceries or public transportation.
And I complained the same way when Mastercard and Visa blocked payment to wikileaks.
It's about the principle of the thing, it has nothing to do with the person victim of the process.
No-one is stopping him opening a bank account. He could go and open the same proletariat bank account I have, that most people have, that you probably have. No background checks, no credit, no problem; just proof of address, sign here, here's your debit card.
He isn't being denied banking. He's being denied a secret channels where he is carrying our transactions so fucking nasty, so tainted, so illegal and so fucking repugnant that even the companies that prop up slave owners, terrorists and nazi gold hoarders are saying it's bad for business.
Knowing the guy it's entirely possible that he's lying, but he claimed that he tried seven different british banks and was denied each time.
I haven't found a definitive denial or confirmation of the story, except a few articles where the journalists contacted uk banks and received a "no comment".
I don't dismiss it, since it happens among other occurrences of banking institutions trying to act like a judicial power on their own. Namely the wikileaks donations block, and the surrealistic paypal 'disinformation fee'.
If he genuinely took money from the russian state, or purposedly tanked the pound sterling in order to short it on the forex market (I didn't make that one up), it stands firmly in the realm of criminal behaviour.
So by all means, investigate, jail him, fine him, cut him into pieces and shoot them into the sun for all I care.
But I think banks do this kind of stuff to pretend that they autoregulate, and avoid genuine government oversight.
Allowing this to happen, even to the most unlikeable person in Britain, sets a precedent which makes me uneasy.
Then again I might just be bullshit, what do I know, I couldn't find the info.