Northern Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap remain defiant ahead of a court appearance for member Mo Chara this week, launching a billboard takeover in London in response.
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The series of billboards was announced on the group’s social media on Tuesday (June 17) ahead of Mo Chara’s scheduled appearance at Westminster Crown Court over terror charges on Wednesday.
Mo Chara, born Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, was last month charged with a terrorism offense by London’s Metropolitan Police after being investigated for allegedly showing support for militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah in historic videos. Both are proscribed as terror groups according to U.K. law, and considered an offense under the Terrorism Act 2000.
In response, Kneecap claimed that the alleged offense is little more than a “carnival of distraction” designed to shift the spotlight away from more pertinent matters. “We deny this ‘offence’ and will vehemently defend ourselves,” Kneecap wrote in a statement.
The group’s timely billboard campaign follows in the same vein as their initial response, with a social media post seeing the group note the messages were specifically plastered in the lead-up to the impending court appearance, which they labelled a “witch-hunt.”
“British courts have long charged people from the North of Ireland with ‘terrorism’ for crimes never committed,” they wrote. “We will fight them. We will win.”
The billboards – in the Irish flag colors of green, white and orange – feature the phrase “More Blacks, More Dogs, More Irish, Mo Chara,” referencing the “No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs” slogan which gained traction in the 20th century to discriminate against the aforementioned groups.
Currently, Kneecap are also scheduled to perform at the Glastonbury Festival in England later this month, despite politicians throughout the U.K. writing to organizers of festivals which have booked the band to request their removal.
Though the group remain on the final lineup for Glastonbury, they were however recently removed from Scotland’s TRNSMT festival in July following safety concerns from law enforcement.
