A British festival has apologized and pledged “a substantial donation” to Palestinian aid after sparking an outcry by cutting the amplification of an Irish band that displayed a Palestinian flag in violation of the festival’s rules.
The Victorious music festival in Portsmouth, England, had aimed to head off possible controversies after a summer festival season marked by uproars over performers’ displays of Palestinian solidarity and anti-Israel sentiment. It told bands that they were not permitted to display flags during their sets.
So when the Mary Wallopers, an Irish folk band, attached a large Palestinian flag to a speaker at the start of their set on Saturday, festival staff intervened. Video that the band shared shows a staffer taking down the first flag after exchanging words with one of the band members.
Lead singer Andrew Hendy had kicked off the set by telling the crowd, “Free Palestine, and f–k Israel” to applause. According to the video, after Hendy calls attention to the flag removal and calls for the audience to leave, the band’s microphones are cut. The group members remain on stage for some time, restoring the removed Palestinian flag and waving others.
“We playing or what?” guitarist Charles Hendy asks someone off-screen after approaching the back of the stage. The answer: “You’re not playing until the flag’s removed.”
Andrew Hendy then discovers that a banjo is still amplified and leads a continued “Free Palestine” chant through it.
The festival initially put out a statement saying that the band had “used a chant which is widely understood to have a discriminatory context,” without specifying what it was. But after other bands backed out and the Mary Wallopers released its video, the festival issued a new statement, apologizing and saying that it had not intended to quash expression.
“We didn’t handle the explanation of our policies sensitively or far enough in advance to allow a sensible conclusion to be reached,” Victorious said in the statement. “This put the band and our own team in a difficult position which never should have arisen. We would like to seriously apologise to all concerned.”
It added, “We absolutely support the right of artists to freely express their views from the stage, within the law and the inclusive nature of the event.”
Other bands came to the Mary Wallopers’ aid during their own performances.
“If someone was punished for flying a flag, that is wrong and they deserve an apology,” Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig, who is Jewish, said during the band’s set later on Saturday after saying he had heard about the controversy but did not have all the details. “The terrible suffering of the Palestinian people deserves all of our sympathy.”
The incident adds to a growing number in which British acts have rallied audiences in pro-Palestinian chants. The U.S. State Department canceled the visas of the group Bob Vylan after its lead singer led Glastonbury festival attendees in chanting “Death to the IDF” in June. The Irish post-punk band Fontaines D.C. projected the message “Israel is committing genocide” during a performance in Spain later that month.
The string of incidents began when the Irish act Kneecap displayed a projection reading “F–k Israel” at Coachella in the United States in April. A Kneecap member, Mo Chara, has since been charged with an act of terrorism in the United Kingdom for displaying a Hezbollah flag during a concert.
The band, which is soon to start a near sold-out U.S. tour, led its own “Free Palestine” chant at a festival in Paris on Sunday, where it performed despite pressure on the festival to drop the act.
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