{"id":3684,"date":"2025-07-18T17:23:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T17:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/3684\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T17:23:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T17:23:09","slug":"uk-police-drop-kneecap-investigation-over-glastonbury-set","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/3684\/","title":{"rendered":"UK police drop Kneecap investigation over Glastonbury set"},"content":{"rendered":"

British police say they will not be taking action against Irish rap group Kneecap following an investigation into comments made by its members during a performance at Glastonbury music festival last month.<\/p>\n

Police launched a criminal investigation into gigs by Kneecap as well as punk-rap duo Bob Vylan, which took place one after another at Glastonbury’s West Holts stage on day four of the June 25-29 festival.<\/p>\n

In May, a member of Kneecap was charged with a terrorism offence<\/a> for allegedly displaying a Hezbollah flag at a previous gig.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group, is proscribed as a terrorist organisation in Britain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He denies the offence.<\/p>\n

At Glastonbury, the Belfast-based group led chanting against Prime Minister Keir Starmer while Bob Vylan’s set included chants of “death to the IDF,” a reference to the Israeli military.<\/p>\n

\"Revellers<\/p>\n

Revellers held up Palestinian and other flags and a representation of a person wearing a balaclava during Kneecap’s Glastonbury set.\u00a0 (Reuters: Jaimi Joy)<\/p>\n

Avon and Somerset Police said they decided to drop the investigation after consulting the Crown Prosecution Service.<\/p>\n

The guests who spiced up Glastonbury 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

With more than 200,000 people taking in over 3,000 performances, Glastonbury always offers plenty to talk about. This year was all about protest, secret sets and… Doctor Who.<\/p>\n

“After that advice, we have made the decision to take no further action on the grounds there is insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction for any offence,” they said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Police said enquiries were still ongoing over the Bob Vylan set.<\/p>\n

Kneecap said the investigation was politically motivated.<\/p>\n

“Every single person who saw our set knew no law was broken, not even close….yet the police saw fit to publicly announce they were opening an investigation,” the group said on Instagram.<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British police say they will not be taking action against Irish rap group Kneecap following an investigation into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,5319,134,5314,5317,5315,5312,5313,5318,1158,5316],"class_list":["post-3684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bob-vylan","tag-entertainment","tag-glastonbury","tag-hezbollah","tag-investigation","tag-keir-starmer","tag-kneecap","tag-kneecap-charges","tag-police","tag-terrorism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}