Bob Vylan takes legal action against portrayal of anti-Semitism after Glastonbury.
London punk rap duo Bob Vylan performed at the Glastonbury Festival, chanting “Dead, dead, dead of the IDF.” The entire crowd sang along. IDF is the acronym for the Israel Defense Forces. Subsequently, the duo’s visa to the USA was revoked and they were removed from the lineup of various festivals. Some of them were portrayed in the media as anti-Semitic. They are now taking legal action against an Irish radio station – for alleged defamation.
Bob Vylan is not happy about the portrayal in the media and that’s why they want to proceed this way. The Manchester Evening News has already apologized for using “showed Nazi salutes on stage” as the wording. The musicians are now filing a lawsuit against the Irish radio station RTE.
Bob Vylan vs RTE
As the Irish Times reports, “a libel case” has been filed against the radio station by Bob Vylan. So you can be pretty sure that the musicians are suing RTE. Specifically, RTE announced that the artists had uttered “anti-Semitic chants” at the Glastonbury Festival. The London duo then described this as completely wrong and emphasized that they were trying to harm Bob Vylan.
The protest situation
In the past, various artists have made no secret of their displeasure with Israel’s military actions in the Gaza Strip. Such actions, as well as critical chants at music events, always caused discussions and opinions differed.
Phoenix Law, which legally represents the artist duo, released a statement regarding the case involving Bob Vylan. It states: “Our clients are accustomed to exercising their right to freedom of expression to protest against the genocide in Gaza. However, there is a fundamental difference between criticism of the role of the Israeli armed forces and anti-Semitism. The former is an expression of opinion within the framework of political freedom of expression, while the latter is a form of hatred against the Jewish people. At no time did our clients behave in the remotely anti-Semitic manner and therefore saw themselves as being forced to have this formally corrected as part of this litigation.”
The radio station itself has so far remained silent about Bob Vylan’s lawsuit.