Kneecap band Belfast: European tour faces three year ban by Hungary, cancelled concerts in Germanay and Austria and intense scrutiny by French Authorities
Controverisial Belfast band Kneecap are continuing to tour Europe - despite a three year ban by Hungary, a string of cancelled concerts in Germany and Austria, and intense scrutiny by French authorities.
The band has faced widespread adulation and condemnation for controversial statements about the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Member Liam Og O hAnnaidh, 27, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court on Wednesday charged with displaying a flag in support of Hezbollah - a proscribed terror group - at a London gig in November last year.
His defence team argued that the case should be thrown out for technical reasons, with a ruling due on 26 September.
The band will play this Sunday in front an expected 40,000 people at the Rock en Seine festival, near Paris, one of France’s biggest live music events.
France’s interior ministry gave the green light to the after establishing that “there is no longer a risk of serious disturbance to public order” that would justify banning the band from appearing at the festival, the Guardian reported.
The band had agreed to abide by a code of conduct after facing a ban from playing the Eurockéennes festival at the French Lac de Malsaucy Belfort nature reserve in July.
Interior minister Bruno Retailleau has written to French MP Caroline Yadan – who called for them to be banned from France – to say that the band has abided by the code of conduct since.
“Any excesses will be immediately prosecuted,” Retailleau told her.
Last month, the town council of Saint-Cloud withdrew a £35,000 subsidy for the Rock en Seine festival over the band’s appearance.
At the Coachella music festival in California in April the group made international headlines when they accused Israel of carrying out genocide in Gaza.
Footage was uncovered of on-stage statements from their 2023 UK tour, including “Up Hamas, up Hezbollah” and “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP”.
The band then apologised to the families of two murdered British MPs and insisted that they have never supported Hamas or Hezbollah.
Shortly after Coachella the band was uninvited from the Hurricane and Southside festivals in Germany in June.
Concerts in Berlin, Cologne and Hamburg were cancelled when The Metropolitan Police started to investigate the group over the Hezbollah flag incident in May.
In July, Hungary’s government announced the band had been classified as a national security threat and formally banned it from entering for three years.
They had been scheduled to appear at a festival in Budapest earlier this month.
A concert in Vienna in September was also cancelled after pressure from Austria’s Freedom party and the conservative ÖVP.
A screening of the band’s Bafta-winning film in Vienna’s Volxkino film festival was also called off.
However gigs in Poland, Finland, Norway and Belgium have gone ahead, and they are due to play sold-out solo shows in Copenhagen and Amsterdam next month.
The News Letter invited Kneecap manager Dan Lambert to comment on the current tour.
He offered his usual reponse: "There’s journalism and then there’s the News Letter Belfast. Nobody from Kneecap will be providing comment to your ‘paper’, ever.”