Australian artists are calling on SBS, Sony Music Australia, and all ten contestants in Saturday’s ‘Australia Decides’ Eurovision Song Contest event to hear the voices of Palestinians, including Palestinian musicians, who are calling for a boycott of Eurovision 2019 in Tel Aviv in Israel.
Significantly last year’s SBS Eurovision judge, hip hop artist L-FRESH The LION, supports the boycott call, as does renowned Australian actor Colin Friels, both quoted below.
“Israel’s 50 year brutal occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, its 11-year illegal blockade and bombings of the two million people trapped in Gaza, its refusal to allow Palestinian refugees to return home, along with the 65 laws that discriminate against the Palestinian minority in Israel make it astonishing that Eurovision should be used to normalise and promote Israel, and that SBS and Australian musicians are playing along without comment,” says BDS Australia campaign spokesperson and Brisbane musician Phil Monsour.
“International boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) played an important role in helping end apartheid in South Africa and the same will be true of ending apartheid in Palestine/Israel,” says Monsour.
A protest action in support of the boycott has been called by Justice for Palestine Brisbane and BDS Australia outside the Gold Coast Convention Centre from 3:30 PM AEST this Saturday 9 February.
“I stand with the people of Palestine. As an artist and musician, I don’t see how Eurovision can achieve its goal of bringing the world together through music by having its 2019 competition in Israel, while Israel continues to violently occupy Palestine. In respecting Palestinian’s call for a cultural boycott of Israel, I encourage my peers to do the same. We all have a part to play. We cannot remain silent or be complicit in the suffering of Palestinian people.”
– L-FRESH The LION, hip hop artist and 2018 SBS Eurovision judge
Actor Colin Friels remarks, ”Given the siege of Gaza and the slaughter of Palestinians, the televising of the Eurovision Song Contest must not be allowed to ‘artwash’ Israeli brutalities. I strongly support the boycott of this event and urge others to do the same.”
Writer, actor and multidisciplinary artist Candy Bowers says, “Palestinian artists and musicians are asking for our solidarity, recognising our own relative privilege, to join the boycott of Israel until they win justice and equality. Israeli policy has been about erasing Palestinian culture and ignoring Palestinian voices. I hear their voices and urge others artists in Australia to hear them too. Art and entertainment should never ignore human rights.”
“Eurovision in Israel seems like a typical colonial diversionary tactic: play loud so that no one hears the gurgling of those being slain.” – contemporary Aboriginal artist Blak Douglas
PHONE: Phil Monsour on +61 400 912 550
EMAIL: BDS Australia at [email protected]
