RSS
Irish Rap Group Kneecap Denies Supporting Hamas, Hezbollah While Again Accusing Israel of ‘Genocide’
Mo Chara (Naoise O Caireallain), Moglai Bap (Liam Og O Hannaidh), Rich Peppiatt and DJ Provai of Kneecap attend the 2025 BAFTAs on February 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Isabel Infantes
The Irish rap trio Kneecap clarified on Monday that it does not support Hamas and Hezbollah, despite recently resurfaced footage showing the group glorifying the US- and UK-designated terrorist organizations at a concert last year.
Footage circulating on social media from a Kneecap concert in November 2024, at the Kentish Town Forum in London, showed one member of the group shouting at the audience “Free Palestine … up Hamas, up Hezbollah” before walking off stage. The Kneecap member had a Hezbollah flag draped over his shoulder as he made the remarks.
The concert took place a little over a year after the Hamas-led deadly rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, during which terrorists murdered 1,200 people and took 251 hostages back to the Gaza Strip. The group members of Kneecap go by the stage names DJ Próvaí, Mo Chara, and Móglaí Bap.
It is illegal to express support for Hamas and Hezbollah, both Iran-backed Islamist terror groups, in the UK. Metropolitan Police said on Sunday that videos from the concert are being assessed by its counterterrorism unit “to determine whether any further police investigation may be required.”
Kneecap said in a released statement on Monday that “we do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah.”
“We condemn all attacks on civilians, always. It is never okay. We know this more than anyone, given our nation’s history,” the group added, in a statement posted on social media. “They want you to believe words are more harmful than genocide. Establishment figures, desperate to silence us, have combed through hundreds of hours of footage and interviews, extracting a handful of words from months or years ago to manufacture moral hysteria.”
The Metropolitan Police counterterrorism unit is also assessing video from another Kneecap concert in London in November 2023, during which one member of Kneecap said: “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP [Member of Parliament].”
Kneecap explained in its statement on Monday that it rejects “any suggestion that we would seek to incite violence against any MP or individual. Ever.” The group also apologized to the families of murdered British MPs Sir David Amess and Jo Cox, who were offended by the “kill your local MP” comment from 2023. The group said, “We send our heartfelt apologies, we never intended to cause you hurt.”
“An extract of footage, deliberately taken out of all context, is now being exploited and weaponized, as if it were a call to action,” the group claimed. “This distortion is not only absurd – it is a transparent effort to derail the real conversation.”
Kneecap then began to spew hateful and anti-Israel rhetoric by accusing the Jewish state of genocide, falsely claiming that 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip “are currently being starved to death by Israel” and alleging that “children were being systematically executed” by Israel. The group has made similar anti-Israel comments many times in the past, including on social media.
“This is where real anger and outrage should be directed towards,” the group suggested. “Kneecap’s message has always been — and remains — one of love, inclusion, and hope. This is why our music resonates across generations, countries, classes, and cultures and has brought hundreds of thousands of people to our gigs. No smear campaign will change that.”
Footage from Kneecap’s 2023 and 2024 concerts resurfaced online last week and sparked controversy following the anti-Israel messaging that the group shared on stage at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California earlier this month. Since the Coachella incident, two major music festivals in Germany rescinded invitations to have Kneecap perform.
Other music festivals around the world are facing pressure from pro-Israel activists to pull the Irish group from its lineup of performers, and Kneecap was dropped from its US booking agency and lost its US work visa. The UK government, British politicians, and pro-Israel supporters around the world have also condemned the group’s hateful comments and actions, with some even calling for the trio to be prosecuted.
Kneecap responded to the criticism in its statement on Monday.
“Suddenly, days after calling out the US administration at Coachella to applause and solidarity, there is an avalanche of outrage and condemnation by the political classes of Britain,” the group said. “The real crimes are not in our performances; the real crimes are the silence and complicity of those in power. Shame on them.”
Along with the statement, Kneecap uploaded on social media a photo that showed a wall with a spray-painted message that said: “Thank you * Kneecap * for being the voice of the oppressed you [sic] music and activism will for all of history. [Love] From Gaza.” A heart was spray painted beside the message.
The post Irish Rap Group Kneecap Denies Supporting Hamas, Hezbollah While Again Accusing Israel of ‘Genocide’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
‘With or Without Russia’s Help’: Iran Pledges to Block South Caucasus Route Opened Up By Peace Deal
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – Iran will block the establishment of a US-backed transit corridor in the South Caucasus region with or without Moscow’s help, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader was quoted as saying on Saturday by the Iran International website, one day after the historic peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
“Mr. Trump thinks the Caucasus is a piece of real estate he can lease for 99 years,” Ali Akbar Velayati said of the so-called Zangezur corridor, the establishment of which is stipulated in the peace deal unveiled on Friday by US President Donald Trump. The White House said the transit route would facilitate greater exports of energy and other resources.
“This passage will not become a gateway for Trump’s mercenaries — it will become their graveyard,” the Khamenei advisor added.
Baku and Yerevan have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous Azerbaijani region mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. Azerbaijan took back full control of the region in 2023, prompting or forcing almost all of the territory’s 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.
Yet that painful history was put to the side on Friday at the White House, as Trump oversaw a signing ceremony, flanked by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
The peace deal with Azerbaijan—a pro-Western ally of Israel—is expected to pull Armenia out of the Russian and Iranian sphere of influence and could transform the South Caucasus, an energy-producing region neighboring Russia, Europe, Turkey and Iran.
RSS
UK Police Arrest 150 at Protest for Banned Palestine Action Group
People holding signs sit during a rally organised by Defend Our Juries, challenging the British government’s proscription of “Palestine Action” under anti-terrorism laws, in Parliament Square, in London, Britain, August 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy
London’s Metropolitan Police said on Saturday it had arrested 150 people at a protest against Britain’s decision to ban the group Palestine Action, adding it was making further arrests.
Officers made arrests after crowds, waving placards expressing support for the group, gathered in Parliament Square, the force said on X.
Protesters, some wearing black and white Palestinian scarves, chanted “shame on you” and “hands off Gaza,” and held signs such as “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action,” video taken by Reuters at the scene showed.
In July, British lawmakers banned Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation after some of its members broke into a Royal Air Force base and damaged planes in protest against Britain’s support for Israel.
The ban makes it a crime to be a member of the group, carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
The co-founder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori, last week won a bid to bring a legal challenge against the ban.
RSS
‘No Leniency’: Iran Announces Arrest of 20 ‘Zionist Agents’
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi addresses a special session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, June 20, 2025. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
i24 News – Iranian authorities have in recent months arrested 20 people charged with being “Israeli Mossad operatives,” the judiciary said, adding that the Islamic regime will mete out the harshest punishments.
“The judiciary will show no leniency toward spies and agents of the Zionist regime, and with firm rulings, will make an example of them all,” spokesperson Asghar Jahangiri told Iranian media. However, it is understood that an unspecified number of detainees were released, apparently after the charges against them could not be substantiated.
The Islamic Republic was left reeling by a devastating 12-day war with Israel earlier in the summer that left a significant proportion of its military arsenal in ruins and dealt a serious setback to its uranium enrichment program. The fallout included an uptick in executions of Iranians convicted of spying for Israel, with at least eight death sentences carried out in recent months. Hit with international sanctions, the country is in dire economic straights, with frequent energy outages and skyrocketing unemployment.
In recent weeks Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi affirmed that Tehran cannot give up on its nuclear enrichment program even as it was severely damaged during the war.
“It is stopped because, yes, damages are serious and severe. But obviously we cannot give up of enrichment because it is an achievement of our own scientists. And now, more than that, it is a question of national pride,” the official told Fox News.