irish artists Pillow Queens and CMAT have turn into the primary acts to withdraw from this summer time’s Latitude pageant, resulting from sponsors Barclays investing in corporations who provide weapons and army know-how to Israel.
In an announcement on Instagram final week, Pillow Queens revealed that they have been pulling out of their look on the July pageant in protest on the pageant’s selection of sponsor. The Dublin quartet state:
“Latitude – a pageant we have been booked to play within the UK in July – lists its headline accomplice as Barclays. A Could 2024 report by Palestine Solidarity Marketing campaign (PSC) particulars Barclays monetary ties to corporations producing weapons and army know-how utilized in Israel’s assaults on Palestinians. It reveals that Barclays has elevated its monetary ties with corporations arming Israel. PSC urges folks to boycott all Barclays providers till the financial institution ends its complicity in Israel’s assaults on Palestinians.
As a band we consider that inventive areas ought to be capable of exist with out being funded by morally corrupt buyers.
It’s for that purpose that now we have pulled out of Latitude Pageant.
Saoirse don Phalaistín.” (Freedom for Palestine).
Now fellow Irish artist CMAT has introduced her intention to boycott the pageant too.
“You might or is probably not conscious,” she writes on Instagram, “however Latitude’s predominant sponsor is Barclays financial institution, who’ve been revealed to I’ve elevated their financing of varied corporations who’re supplying weapons and army know-how to Israel. Particularly, it has invested over £100 Million into Basic Dynamics which gives gun programs to the fighter jets that are being utilized by Israel to bombard Gaza.”
The singer/songwriter’s assertion goes on to say that “with all the press surrounding the courageous artists who pulled out of The Nice Escape pageant for a similar causes, that Latitude would divest from Barclay’s, or discover one other sponsor.” This, she says, is just not going to occur.
“I cannot enable my treasured work, my music, which I really like a lot, to get into mattress with violence,” she continues. “Myself, and your complete CMAT touring crew who I really like a lot, refuse to be complicit in genocide.”
“Let me be clear. There’s a genocide taking place in Palestine proper now. All I can do as a citizen is flip as much as as many demonstrations as doable and attempt to observe the recommendation of the BDS boycott listing as carefully as I presumably can. This falls beneath that motion. I hope that as lots of you studying this as doable will select to point out your solidarity with the Palestinian folks in no matter manner you’ll be able to.”
Pageant sponsors’ hyperlinks with corporations supplying the Israel army of their on-going battle in opposition to the folks of Palestine additionally led to Irish artists spearheading a boycott of the SXSW pageant in March.
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