{"id":34170,"date":"2025-07-24T16:56:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T16:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/34170\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T16:56:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T16:56:08","slug":"hungary-bans-irish-rap-group-kneecap-from-entering-ahead-of-festival-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/34170\/","title":{"rendered":"Hungary bans Irish rap group Kneecap from entering ahead of festival performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) \u2014 Hungary<\/a> banned the Irish-language rap group Kneecap<\/a> from the country Thursday ahead of their scheduled performance at the popular Sziget Festival, with officials arguing that the musicians’ presence would pose a risk to national security.<\/p>\n

The Belfast trio, scheduled to play on Sziget’s closing day on Aug. 11, is known for anarchic energy, satirical lyrics and use of symbolism associated with the Irish republican movement, which seeks to unite Northern Ireland<\/a> \u2014 currently part of the U.K. \u2014 with the Republic of Ireland<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The group has faced criticism for lyrics laden with expletives and drug references and for political statements seeming to glorify militant groups like Hamas<\/a> and Hezbollah<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

Hungary’s immigration authority \u2014 the National Directorate-General for Aliens Policing \u2014 published decrees on Thursday declaring Kneecap members Naoise \u00d3 Caireall\u00e1in, J.J. \u00d3 Dochartaigh and Liam \u00d3g \u00d3hAnnaidh would be banned from Hungary’s territory for three years since their \u201centry and stay constitute a serious threat to national security.\u201d<\/p>\n

Government spokesman Zolt\u00e1n Kov\u00e1cs wrote on social media platform X that the decision to ban Kneecap was due to \u201cantisemitic hate speech and open praise for Hamas and Hezbollah.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hungarian authorities and other groups had earlier pushed Sziget Festival to cancel the band’s performance. Hungary’s minister for European affairs, J\u00e1nos B\u00f3ka, noted the government\u2019s \u201czero-tolerance\u201d policy toward antisemitism in a July 11 letter to the festival’s organizers.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of figures from Hungary’s music and cultural community have also signed a petition calling for Kneecap’s performance to be cancelled.<\/p>\n

Festival representatives said the decision was \u201cunnecessary and regrettable\u201d and could serve to \u201cnot only damage the reputation of Sziget, but also negatively affect Hungary’s standing worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSziget Festival’s values mean we condemn hate speech, while guaranteeing the fundamental right to artistic freedom of expression for every performer,\u201d organizers wrote in a statement. \u201cCancel culture and cultural boycotts are not the solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement on their social media channels, Kneecap blamed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n for the ban, calling his government \u201cauthoritarian\u201d and criticizing him for welcoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Hungary<\/a> in April despite a warrant for his arrest from the International Criminal Court over accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe stand against all hate crimes and Kneecap champions love and solidarity as well as calling out injustices where we see it,\u201d the band wrote.<\/p>\n

Kneecap performed in April at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival<\/a> in California, where they accused Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians enabled by the U.S. government. 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":"BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) \u2014 Hungary banned the Irish-language rap group Kneecap from the country Thursday ahead of their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[28351,88,5617,9174,28354,28355,28353,216,2520,28352],"class_list":["post-34170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-budapest","tag-entertainment","tag-hamas","tag-hungary","tag-irish-republican-movement","tag-irish-language","tag-kneecap","tag-music","tag-performance","tag-sziget-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}