Kneecap had four dates scheduled for Canada next month, including two concerts in Toronto and two in Vancouver.<\/p>\n
Canada\u2019s parliamentary secretary for combating crime, Vince Gasparro MP said Kneecap have recently \u201cengaged in actions and have made statements that are contrary to Canadian values and laws that have caused deep alarm to our government”.<\/p>\n
In a post on social media, he said the decision had been reached \u201con the advice of our officials\u201d.<\/p>\n
The group issued a response to Mr Gasparro, describing his comments as \u201cwholly untrue and deeply malicious\u201d and announcing their intention to begin legal action against him.<\/p>\n
“No member of Kneecap has been convicted of ANY crime in ANY country EVER,\u201d a statement on the groups\u2019s social media read.<\/p>\n
They added that instructed their<\/p>\n
“Whilst you outrageously try to claim we are antisemitic, the Times newspaper in England today wrote of our headline show in London last night as \u2018emphatically anti-sectarian\u2019.<\/p>\n
“We have today instructed our lawyers to initiate legal action against you.<\/p>\n
“We will be relentless in defending ourselves against baseless accusations to silence our opposition to genocide being committed by Israel.<\/p>\n
“When we beat you in court, which we will, we will donate every cent to assist some of the thousands of child amputees in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kneecap also shared a message to fans in Canada, saying they have valid travel authorisation to enter Canada and there are Zionist lobby groups \u201cattempting to influence your government and its representatives through serious misinformation which we are acting against legally\u201d.<\/p>\n
“We are sorry we cannot be with you next month but we will not be silenced and will always oppose genocide,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n
In a video posted to his social media, Mr Gasparro said: \u201cThe group have amplified political violence and publicly displayed support for terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas. These are not expressions of art or legitimate political critique. They are dangerous endorsements of violence and hate.<\/p>\n
“Notably, one member of the band is currently facing terrorism related charges in the United Kingdom. Criticism of foreign governments is protected under Canada\u2019s charter of rights and freedom.<\/p>\n
“However, advocating for political violence, glorifying terrorist organisations and displaying hate symbols that directly target the Jewish community are not protected forms of expression, and will not be tolerated by our government.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kneecap have previously said they do not support either Hamas or Hezbollah and that they do not condone violence.<\/p>\n
Mr Gasparro said the three members of Kneecap \u2013 Liam \u00d3g \u00d3 hAnnaidh, Naoise \u00d3 Caireallain and JJ \u00d3 Dochartaigh \u2013 are ineligible to enter Canada, effective immediately.<\/p>\n
Kneecap announced on Friday that an upcoming 12 date tour of the UK in November is sold out, as are shows scheduled for Paris and Amsterdam.<\/p>\n
Last month at Electric Picnic, they performed to huge crowds after being added to the festival\u2019s lineup on short notice. The director of the festival Melvin Benn said adding Kneecap to the show was a \u201creally important statement\u201d.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s announcement comes following the group\u2019s decision to cancel the US leg of its North American tour due to \u00d3hAnnaidh\u2019s upcoming appearance before a court in London to face a terror charge.<\/p>\n
\u00d3 hAnnaidh, better known by his stage name Mo Chara, was charged in May with displaying a flag of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah during a concert in London last November.<\/p>\n
He denies the charge, and Kneecap have said they do not support Hezbollah or Hamas. The case is adjourned until September 26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kneecap had four dates scheduled for Canada next month, including two concerts in Toronto and two in Vancouver.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,4066,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-74610","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-kneecap","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}