Riyadh Lafta is an Iraqi doctor who participated in a controversial study reporting that the US-led invasion has cost hundreds of thousands of civilian lives. Invited to take part in an April 20 medical conference in Washington State, Dr. Lafta was denied a visa by the State Department.

Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Colombia extended an invitation to Dr. Lafta so he could take part in the symposium via teleconference. Researchers could also have traveled by car to meet Dr. Lafta in person.

But traveling to Canada would have required a four-hour layover in London, and the British government ? apparently under pressure from Washington ? refused to grant him a transit visa.

Dr. Lafta's associates believe he was banned from our shores because his research would catalyze opposition to the Iraq war. The State Department claims it was the product of a simple miscommunication. Yet the doctor and his colleagues spent months trying to clear away obstacles to his visit.

This isn't border control. It's Soviet-style information control.

Let us stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.