Court in Chile rejects ban on Roger Waters performing over claims of antisemitism

nme.com:

Roger Waters’ upcoming concerts in the country can go ahead, despite attempts to block them over accusations of antisemitism.The former Pink Floyd bassist, who has repeatedly insisted he is not an antisemite, is set to play at the Estadio Monumental in Santiago on November 25 and 26, as part of his This Is Not A Drill Tour.But the Representative Committee of Jewish Entities in Chile had sought to stop the shows from taking place, citing what they describe as Waters’ “history of incitement to antisemitic hatred”.However, as reported by Cooperativa, the bid has been dismissed by Santiago’s Court of Appeals, who ruled that “no facts have been mentioned that could constitute a violation of the constitutional guarantees”.In response to the attempt to block the concerts, a group of over 60 Chilean artists wrote a letter to the country’s Court of Appeals, imploring them to allow the shows to go ahead.“The mentioned action, beyond its rhetorical foundation, seeks to censor in advance the criticism of the killing of children, bombings of refugee camps, hospitals, the killing of United Nations officials, among other crimes committed by the government led by the far-right Benjamin Netanyahu,” they wrote.In April, Waters won a legal battle to play a concert in Frankfurt after it was initially cancelled over claims of antisemitism.He had been scheduled to play at the publicly owned Festhalle on May 28, but Frankfurt City Council called off the performance over the musician’s views on Israel.

They later described him as “one of the world’s most widely-known antisemites”.But the court said that despite his show making use of “symbolism manifestly based on that of the National Socialist regime”, the tastelessness of which it said was.