Legal action fails over Roger Waters’ Chile gigs
The Jewish community of Chile has failed in an appeal to ban Roger Waters from “using elements or issuing comments that incite hatred and anti-Semitism” at his upcoming Santiago concerts.
The 80-year-old former Pink Floyd bassist, who has repeatedly insisted he is not an antisemite, brings his This Is Not a Drill Tour to Estadio Monumental this weekend for two shows from 25-26 November.
In its appeal, the community – which alleges that Waters has a “history of incitement to anti-Semitic hatred” – also called on promoter DG Medios to carry out “all necessary actions” to prevent the musician from making any “Judeophobic” statements.
“The CJCh [Representative Committee of Jewish Entities in Chile] seeks to prohibit him from using elements or issuing comments that incite hatred and anti-Semitism in his concert,” says Jewish community leader Ariela Agosín, as per Merco Press. “It also seeks that the producer [DG Medios] performs all necessary actions to prevent the… events from occurring.
“We are not interested that he stops singing, but that his concerts are not an incitement to hatred, that he does not call for violence, that he does not use anti-Semitic elements. That’s what our actions will be.”
However, Cooperativa reports that the bid has been ruled inadmissible by Santiago’s Court of Appeals as “no facts have been mentioned that could constitute a violation of the constitutional guarantees”.
The community had followed the lead of the Delegation of Argentine Israeli Associations (DAIA), which recently attempted to prevent Waters from performing in Buenos Aires for “discrimination, advocacy of crime and incitement to collective violence”.
According to Infoebae, while the DAIA failed to have the dates cancelled, it succeeded in gaining a ruling from the Argentine authorities that prohibited Waters from uttering anti-Jewish epithets in his concerts at Estadio River Plate on 21-22 November. The Jerusalem Post reports that Waters subsequently dropped his “antisemitic iconography” from his presentation for the Argentina shows.
“A prosecutor was present at both shows and warned the stadium and the production company that she would be attentive if Waters committed a violation of the law”
“A legal firm denounced, together with an affidavit subscribed by myself, that if he did the same show he had been doing on tour, where he dressed as a Nazi, used the Star of David on the flying pig, and compared Abu Shakleh to Anne Frank, that it would be considered a crime,” said SWC Latin America’s director Dr Ariel Gelbung.
“A prosecutor was present at both shows and warned the stadium and the production company that she would be attentive if Waters committed a violation of the law.
“At the same time, the DAIA, the political representation of the Jewish community in Argentina, managed to get a judge to let Waters know that he had to refrain from making antisemitic comments.”
The tour, which wraps up in Quito, Ecuador on 9 December, was subject to controversy earlier this year in Germany, where Frankfurt City Council and the state of Hesse attempted to block Waters performance at Frankfurt’s Festhalle, citing allegations of “persistent anti-Israel behaviour” from Waters, who it claimed was “considered one of the most widely spread antisemites in the world”.
Waters took legal action, branding the move “unconstitutional”, “without justification, and based upon the false accusation that Roger Waters is antisemitic, which he is not”. A German court subsequently ruled the gig should be allowed to go ahead, concluding that blocking it would infringe upon Waters’ free speech rights.
Almost 40,000 people, including artists Eric Clapton, Brian Eno, Nick Mason, Peter Gabriel and Tom Morello, signed a petition demanding the concerts be allowed to proceed.
A cross-party group of politicians in Germany was also unsuccessful in demanding the cancellation of Waters’ gig in Cologne due to his comments on the war in Ukraine.
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Waters set for Ecuador’s biggest rock gig since 95
Roger Waters’ newly announced Ecuador show is set to be the biggest rock gig to hit the country in almost 30 years.
The Pink Floyd co-founder will play the 40,000-cap Estadio Olímpico Atahualpa in Quito on 9 December, presented by Move Concerts, DG Medios and Sight Concerts.
The event will be the South American nation’s biggest rock show since Bon Jovi played the venue in 1995 and is currently scheduled to serve as the finale of Waters’ 2022/23 This Is Not a Drill Tour.
Waters has also confirmed a string of “farewell” dates in Latin America as part of the tour, with concerts lined up in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Costa Rica and Colombia.
“The farewell tour of represents a unique opportunity for Costa Rican fans to immerse themselves in an unforgettable show”
“The farewell tour of represents a unique opportunity for Costa Rican fans to immerse themselves in an unforgettable show,” says Move Concerts of the 2 December stop at Estadio Nacional de Costa Rica in San José. “It promises to be an incomparable audiovisual experience, with avant-garde visual effects, a repertoire full of hits and a message that transcends generational barriers.”
Waters’ ticket-selling pedigree in the region is long-established. He previously held the record for the number of stadium concerts in Argentina after playing nine shows at the 65,000-cap Estadio River Plate in Buenos Aires during his The Wall Live tour in March 2012, which stood for a decade until being broken by Coldplay last year.
Meanwhile, Waters, who attracted criticism for wearing a Nazi-inspired uniform at a concert in Berlin last week, is due to perform at Frankfurt Festhalle on Sunday (28 May). Frankfurt City Council and the state of Hesse had attempted to block the performance, citing allegations of “persistent anti-Israel behaviour” from Waters, who it claimed was “considered one of the most widely spread antisemites in the world”.
However, the Frankfurt administrative court has concluded that blocking the show would infringe upon Waters’ free speech rights.
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