Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters might face prosecution after declaring his help for Palestine Motion, an organisation that has been banned by the UK parliament.
Waters posted a video to X during which he praised Palestine Motion as a “nice organisation,” saying they had been “nonviolent” and “completely not terrorists in any means”.
He additionally expressed help for British punk-rap band Bob Vylan, who had a controversial set at this 12 months’s Glastonbury Pageant after they led a chant of “demise, demise to the IDF” (Israel Defence Drive).
As of final Saturday, Palestine Motion was proscribed as a terrorist group within the UK underneath the Terrorism Act 2000. Which means that membership in or public help for the group is now labeled as a legal offence and is punishable by as much as 14 years in jail and/or a wonderful.
Within the video, Waters additionally confirmed viewers an indication he was making from cardboard saying “Roger Waters helps Palestine Motion”.
“Parliament has been corrupted by brokers of a genocidal international energy. Rise up and be counted. It’s now. That is the second. I’m Spartacus,” he stated.
Waters went on to declare independence from the UK authorities.
“I declare my independence from the federal government of the UK, who’ve simply designated Palestine Motion a terrorist, proscribed terrorist organisation.”
Organisations corresponding to Marketing campaign In opposition to Antisemitism (CAA) have responded to the video on social media, writing: “Now we have reviewed this put up. Palestine Motion has been proscribed. Anybody expressing help for it opposite to part 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000 commits a legal offence. We stand able to privately prosecute offenders in situations the place an offence has been made out and the authorities fail to behave.”
Waters has beforehand denied accusations of antisemitism in his longtime help for Palestine.
His alleged antisemitic remarks have “infuriated his former bandmates” and final 12 months, Waters was reportedly dropped by music rights firm BMG over his inflammatory remarks about Israel, Ukraine and the US.
He gained a authorized battle in April 2023 after magistrates of Frankfurt instructed a venue to cancel his live performance, accusing him of being “some of the broadly identified antisemites on the earth”.
Waters defined that his disdain is in the direction of Israel, not Judaism, accusing Israel of “abusing the time period antisemitism to intimidate individuals like me into silence”.
Waters has additionally hit again at different musicians for his or her differing stances on Israel. He instructed Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood that “there isn’t any argument to be made”, including: “It’s not a battle. It’s a genocide, Thom and Jonny.”
