{"id":75427,"date":"2025-09-20T14:48:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T14:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/75427\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T14:48:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T14:48:10","slug":"canada-bans-irish-rap-group-kneecap-from-entering-the-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/75427\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada bans Irish rap group Kneecap from entering the country"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO — The Canadian government banned the Irish-language rap group Kneecap<\/a> from the country Friday, saying the group has endorsed political violence and terrorism.<\/p>\n

The group has faced criticism for political statements seeming to glorify militant groups like Hamas<\/a> and Hezbollah<\/a>. Hungary<\/a> previously banned the group. <\/p>\n

Liberal lawmaker Vince Gasparro, parliamentary secretary for combating crime, said Kneecap has \u201cpublicly displayed support for terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas\u201d that goes beyond artistic expression.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanada stands firmly against hate speech, incitement to violence and the glorification of terrorism,\u201d Gasparro said in a video on social media. <\/p>\n

\u201cPolitical debate and free speech are vital to our democracy, but open endorsements of terrorist groups are not free speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kneecap has accused critics of trying to silence the band because of its support for the Palestinian cause throughout Israel\u2019s war in Gaza<\/a>. They say they don\u2019t support Hezbollah and Hamas nor condone violence.<\/p>\n

Kneecap responded in an Instagram post, saying that Gasparro\u2019s comments are \u201cwholly untrue and deeply malicious.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have today instructed our lawyers to initiate legal action against you,\u201d the band\u2019s statement said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will be relentless in defending ourselves against baseless accusation to silence our opposition to a genocide being committed by Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kneecap was scheduled to perform next month in Toronto and Vancouver.<\/p>\n

The Canada-based advocacy organization Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs says the decision is a stand against \u201cincitement, hate and radicalization,\u201d while Jewish organization B\u2019nai Brith is declaring \u201cvictory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kneecap performed in April at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival<\/a> in California, where they accused Israel \u2014 enabled by the U.S. government \u2014 of committing genocide against the Palestinians. That sparked calls for the rappers\u2019 U.S. visas to be revoked and several Kneecap gigs have since been canceled as a result.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO — The Canadian government banned the Irish-language rap group Kneecap from the country Friday, saying the group…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[51264,36010,584,715,18,117,3334,8627,19,17,29861,8659,337,51263,35843,3336,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-75427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-51264","9":"tag-2024-2025-mideast-wars","10":"tag-article","11":"tag-crime","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-genocide","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-israel-hamas-war","19":"tag-language","20":"tag-music","21":"tag-political-endorsements","22":"tag-political-violence","23":"tag-terrorism","24":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75427","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=75427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}