Chants of “free, free Palestine” and “death, death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces]” made on stage by rap punk duo Bob Vylan and Irish-language rap group Kneecap at the famous Glastonbury Festival on Saturday are being assessed by the UK police.
According to the BBC, the government has “strongly condemned” the chants during the group’s performance which was broadcast live on the BBC.
A BBC spokesperson said some of the comments were “deeply offensive”, adding it had issued a warning on screen about “very strong and discriminatory language”. The set will not be available to rewatch on BBC iPlayer.
The Israeli Embassy posted on the social media site X that it was “deeply disturbed by the inflammatory and hateful rhetoric”.
The BBC reports that the festival said in a statement: “Glastonbury Festival does not condone hate speech or incitement to violence of any kind from its performers.”
After Bob Vylan’s performance, a government spokesperson said Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy had spoken to BBC director general Tim Davie to seek an “urgent explanation about what due diligence” the broadcaster carried out ahead of airing the act.
Image by Dirk (Beeki®) Schumacher from Pixabay