Kneecap Set London Billboards Forward of ‘Witch-Hunt’ Court docket Look

Northern Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap stay defiant forward of a court docket look for member Mo Chara this week, launching a billboard takeover in London in response.

The sequence of billboards was introduced on the group’s social media on Tuesday (June 17) forward of Mo Chara’s scheduled look at Westminster Crown Court docket over terror fees on Wednesday.

Mo Chara, born Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, was final month charged with a terrorism offense by London’s Metropolitan Police after being investigated for allegedly exhibiting help for militant teams Hamas and Hezbollah in historic movies. Each are proscribed as terror teams in accordance with U.Ok. legislation, and regarded an offense underneath the Terrorism Act 2000.

In response, Kneecap claimed that the alleged offense is little greater than a “carnival of distraction” designed to shift the highlight away from extra pertinent issues. “We deny this ‘offence’ and can vehemently defend ourselves,” Kneecap wrote in a assertion. 

The group’s well timed billboard marketing campaign follows in the identical vein as their preliminary response, with a social media submit seeing the group notice the messages have been particularly plastered within the lead-up to the upcoming court docket look, which they labelled a “witch-hunt.”

“British courts have lengthy charged individuals from the North of Eire with ‘terrorism’ for crimes by no means dedicated,” they wrote. “We’ll combat them. We’ll win.”

The billboards – within the Irish flag colours of inexperienced, white and orange – function the phrase “Extra Blacks, Extra Canines, Extra Irish, Mo Chara,” referencing the “No Irish, No Blacks, No Canines” slogan which gained traction within the twentieth century to discriminate in opposition to the aforementioned teams.

Presently, Kneecap are additionally scheduled to carry out on the Glastonbury Pageant in England later this month, regardless of politicians all through the U.Ok. writing to organizers of festivals which have booked the band to request their elimination.

Although the group stay on the remaining lineup for Glastonbury, they have been nevertheless not too long ago eliminated from Scotland’s TRNSMT competition in July following security issues from legislation enforcement.