The government has “strongly condemned” chants at Glastonbury Festival from rap punk duo Bob Vylan calling for “death” to the Israeli military and broadcast live on the BBC.
Rapper Bobby Vylan led chants of “free, free Palestine” and “death, death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces]” during their set, which came just before Belfast rap trio Kneecap.
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.
Police said they were reviewing videos of comments made by Bob Vylan and Kneecap to decide whether any offences had been committed.
For some balance: the UK hate speech laws despite what the daily mail push have been applied relatively evenly with the intent of preventing violence which has been a problem in the UK in several cases where innocents were unfairly targeted then attacked.
I’m not really one way or the other regarding the BBC decision, I can see it both ways and the footage will be out there regardless of their choice. I personally support the message being free speech and for the public to make their judgement.
Re the police reviewing it. This can often happen with high profile stuff even if it’s to officially class it as free speech, so no one can say it was ignored and the were discriminated against. However if the police find it to be anything other than free speech based on current events, I would find that highly concerning. He didn’t say death to Jews, or Israel, it was specific to the IDF.