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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
British music festival apologizes to band who say they were ‘cut
off’ for waving Palestinian flag
By Max Saltman and Sophie Tanno, CNN
Updated:
8:21 AM EDT, Sun August 24, 2025
Source: CNN
Organizers of a music festival in Portsmouth, England have apologized
to Irish folk band The Mary Wallopers who claim they were muted during
their set for displaying a Palestinian flag.
A string of other performers pulled out of the Victorious music
festival over the spat, accusing organizers of stifling free speech.
After initially claiming that the band’s peformance was stopped over
a “discriminatory” chant, the Victorious music festival issued a
statement on Instagram saying sorry and pledging to donate to
humanitarian efforts for Palestinians.
“We didn’t handle the explanation of our policies sensitively or
far enough in advance to allow a sensible conclusion to be reached,”
the statement seen by British news agency PA Media said.
“This put the band and our own team in a difficult situation which
never should have arisen. We would like to sincerely apologise to all
concerned.”
The statement continued, “We accept that, although mics remained live
for longer, sound for The Mary Wallopers’ audience was cut as
described in the band’s video and that comments after that were not
audible to the public.”
In a post on Instagram, the band claimed that they were “cut off”
at the festival, “for having a Palestinian flag on the stage,” and
called Victorious’ initial explanation misleading.
The band’s statement continued, “We’ve been doing this for six
years now and this has never happened before.”
from the concert posted by the band on Instagram show that the Mary
Wallopers’ banjo player Andrew Hendy began the set by saying “Free
Palestine, and f**k Israel” before the group launched into one of
their songs.
Their playing continues for about a minute further, according to the
video, when a stagehand appears to come on stage and remove a
Palestinian flag that the band had affixed to one of its speakers.
Andrew Hendy tells the crowd that the band were instructed not to fly a
Palestinian flag or they would be cut off, encouraging audience members
to leave the festival grounds. The banjo player began chanting “Free
Palestine” before his mic was cut.
Later, video from another angle shows the band’s guitarist Charles
Hendy asking a person offscreen whether the band will be allowed to
continue playing. The response is muffled, but the person appears to
reply that the Palestinian flag needs to be removed.
“We’re not playing,” Charles Hendy responds.
“Fine,” the person offscreen says.
As the band waved to the crowd and left the stage, audience members
began chanting “Free Palestine” and “Let them play!”
“People were upset and angry,” said Emma Gaynor, an audience member
who attended the concert with her partner. “I didn’t hear anything
discriminatory, it all happened very quickly.”
Jess Huxham, another attendee, said that other bands who played the
festival that day had also said “Free Palestine” during their sets.
“From all I heard,” Huxham said in an email. “[The Mary
Wallopers] did say ‘Free Palestine,’ which other bands on the main
stage had said before their set.”
The incident comes amid fierce controversy around pro-Palestinian
activism and free speech in the UK, with musicians often at the
forefront.
After rap duo Bob Vylan chanted “Death to the IDF” at their
Glastonbury Festival set in June, police in the UK launched a . Even
the United States government weighed in, the band members’ visas
ahead of their US tour.
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