The German music festival Ruhrtriennale has canceled the band Young Fathers from performing on August 18 due to its anti-Israel rhetoric.
The band, Young Fathers, has been an active supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, as in 2017 they refused to play in a German festival because one of the performing bands received a donation from the Israeli embassy. They also pressured Radiohead to not perform in Israel.
The Ruhrtriennale website published a press release stating that they asked Young Fathers to back away from BDS, but they refused to do so, leading to the festival canceling the band’s performance.
“The Ruhrtriennale distances itself in all forms from the BDS movement and wishes to have absolutely no connection with the campaign,” Stefanie Carp, the artistic director of Ruhrtriennale, said in the press release. “We have therefore decided to cancel the concert. We regret this immensely, because the Young Fathers would have set an important tone in the program of the Ruhrtriennale.”
Young Fathers told Artists for Palestine UK that the cancelation did indeed happen and stood behind the BDS movement as being “nonviolent and non-racist” and claimed that Israel has committed “grave violations of the human rights of the Palestinian people.”
Recent reports have linked the BDS movement to terror groups and studies have shown that violence has increased on college campuses following the growth of BDS.
