The Irish rappers in northern Kneecap, who recently published messages against Israel, said “had never supported Hamas or Hezbollah” and denied any incitement to hatred against conservative parliamentarians, after the dissemination of videos that aroused an outrage.
“Whether we do not support and we have never supported Hamas or Hezbollah. We condemn all attacks against civilians, still,” said the rappers, known for their support for the Palestinian cause, in a statement published on social networks on Monday night.
On April 18, during a concert at the Californian Festival of Coachella, Belfast’s trio had projected the following messages on a giant screen: “Israel commits a genocide against the Palestinian people”, “Fuck Israel, launch of Palestine.”
Clarify the position
His words aroused strong reactions in social networks and videos of previous concerts that circulated, swelling the controversy. One of them, filmed in London last year, shows one of the rappers shouting “Go Hamas, Go The Hezbollah.”
The two organizations are designated as terrorists and prohibited in the United Kingdom, and it is illegal to express some support. Irish prime minister, Micheal Martin, had called the rappers on Monday to “urgently clarify” their position.
The British police said they had examined the video, like another, filmed during a concert in November 2023, in which one of the rappers said that “a good Tory (member of the British Conservative Party) is a dead Tory. Kill your deputy.”
“We also refute the idea that we would seek to encourage violence against a deputy or an individual.” Never, “the rappers said.
They presented their “sincere apologies” to the families of two deputies, the curator David Amess and the work Jo Cox, murdered respectively in 2021 and 2016. “We never had the intention of hurting you,” they said.
Apologies of “medium sauce”
Downing Street, however, estimated that these were “stockings” apologies. “We categorically reject, in the fastest terms, the comments they made,” added a spokesman for Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
The group members punished a “denigration campaign” against them, evoking video images “out of context” and an “obvious attempt to divert real topics of conversation.”
“The real crimes do not reside in our actions; real crimes are the silence and complicity of those in power,” they added.
The rappers, who made themselves known throughout the world with the launch in 2024 of their album “Fine Art” and a docued fiction, “Kneecap”, are distinguished by their punk energy. The trio recruits in English and Irish and defends its language as a “anti -colonial” cry against British power.
Source: BFM TV
