The Northern Irish rap trio Kneecap have described a terror offence charge against one of their members as “political policing” that is intended to stifle criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza.
“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,” the group said in a statement on X on Thursday. “This is a carnival of distraction. We are not the story, genocide is.”
On Wednesday, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, 27, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, was charged with a terrorism offence for allegedly displaying a flag in support of Hezbollah at a gig in London. Under the name Liam O’Hanna he is scheduled to appear at Westminster magistrates court on 18 June.
The Metropolitan police said the rapper was accused of displaying the flag at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town on 21 November last year “in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that he is a supporter of a proscribed organisation”.
The Met’s counter-terrorism command was made aware on Tuesday 22 April of an online video from the event and carried out an investigation, which led to the Crown Prosecution Service authorising the charge, the force said in a statement.
The band from Northern Ireland said they would vehemently contest what they called a politically motivated charge. “A charge not serious enough to even warrant their crown court, instead a court that doesn’t have a jury. 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 speak out.”
The trio accused the British authorities of abetting slaughter by the Israel Defense Forces. “The IDF units they arm and fly spy plane missions for are the real terrorists, the whole world can see it.”
On Thursday, the band announced a last-minute intimate show at the 100 Club, a 350-capacity venue in central London. The show sold out in 90 seconds, with a further 2,000 people on the waiting list, Kneecap announced on their social media.
The accompanying poster for the concert featured a recent quote from the former Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon, who said the trio “need a bloody good knecapping” in response to the controversy around them.
Since the Met’s counter-terrorism investigation into Kneecap began, the band have been removed from several festival lineups, including scheduled German appearances at Hurricane festival and Southside festival. They were also axed from the Eden Project in Cornwall and Plymouth Pavilions.
MPs continue to call for them to be removed from the line-ups of TRNSMT, Glastonbury and other upcoming events. However, there were no announcements of further cancellations following the news of Ó hAnnaidh being charged, and Kneecap are still set to perform at Wide Awake in London’s Brockwell park on Friday.
The band’s streaming figures have soared in recent weeks and their album Fine Art entered the charts for the first time in several countries, including Italy, Brazil and Germany. According to the Official Charts Company, the album’s volumes soared by 103% in seven days, and the band received a 62% increase in their number of streams.
Kneecap’s advocacy for Palestine came under intense scrutiny after they used a performance at the Coachella festival in California last month to denounce Israeli attacks on Gaza.
A video emerged from a November 2023 gig appearing to show one of the trio saying: “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.” Another video appeared to show a banner supporting Hezbollah. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are banned in the UK and it is a crime to express support for them.
The group apologised to the families of murdered MPs and said they did not support Hamas or Hezbollah and that the controversy was an attempt to distract from the bombing and humanitarian disaster in Gaza. The statement on Thursday said the band were on the right side of history.
Campaign Against Antisemitism, which reported Kneecap to counter-terrorism police, welcomed the prosecution, saying: “The law must be enforced.”
Simon Harris, Ireland’s foreign minister and tánaiste (deputy prime minister), told Dublin’s Newstalk radio that he would not comment on the case but that Hezbollah or Hamas should not be conflated with the Palestinian people. Harris said Israel’s actions in Gaza were “a consistent pattern of war crimes” and that recent statements from the Israeli government meant “we’re very much now in the space of genocidal activity”.
