Unsurprisingly, the lads aren’t taking this latest setback lying down. “14,000 babies are about to die of starvation in Gaza, with food sent by the world sitting on the other side of a wall, and once again the British establishment is focused on us,” they began a statement posted on Instagram today. “We deny this ‘offence’ and will vehemently defend ourselves. This is political policing. This is a carnival of distraction. We are not the story. Genocide is.”
Kneecap’s members were the subjects of a semi-autobiographical film of the same name last summer. While they’ve always been incredibly outspoken (videos that allegedly showed the band shouting “kill your local MP” at a 2023 show were also part of the counter-terror investigation), the trio has used this expanded platform to ramp up their advocacy for Palestine and condemnation of Israel, most notably during a headline-grabbing Coachella performance that drew an outpouring of both anger and support from the artistic community. While the band wrote in a statement at the time that they did not support Hamas or Hezbollah and “condemn[ed] all attacks on civilians, always,” they also suggested that the media’s “distortion” of their performance was “not only absurd – it is a transparent effort to derail the real conversation.”
The trio once again accused the British aristocracy of using them as a scapegoat in today’s statement. “As they profit from genocide, they use an ‘anti-terror law’ against us for displaying a flag thrown on stage. A charge not serious enough to even warrant their ‘crown court’ [sic], instead a court that doesn’t have a jury,” the trio continued. “What’s the objective? To restrict our ability to travel. To prevent us speaking to young people across the world. To silence voices of compassion. To prosecute artists who dare to speak out.”
“We stand proudly with the people. You stand complicit with the war criminals. We are on the right side of history. You are not. We will fight you in court. We will win. Free Palestine,” the band’s statement concluded. You can read the full text here.
