Artists, producers, DJs, promoters and musicians support the call to cut ties with HÖR Berlin.
We are artists, producers, DJs, promoters and musicians in the international electronic music community who condemn the state of Israel’s ‘textbook case of genocide’ and displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, and unequivocally call for an immediate ceasefire.
In a little over 30 days, over 11,000 Palestinians – almost half of which are children – have been murdered by Israeli airstrikes that have targeted hospitals, schools, mosques, churches and ambulances. Apartheid Israel has cut off water, electricity, telecommunications, blocked the entry of food, fuel and humanitarian aid into Gaza, whilst using white phosphorus, an incendiary weapon that is banned under international law, along with displacing over a million Palestinians – amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Western governments have failed to honour their obligations under international law by aiding and abetting Israel and allowing it to act with complete impunity.
Our demands for a ceasefire have been stifled by the targeted suppression and silencing of our voices in states such as Germany, which have reached an unprecedented level of censorship.
However, in June 2020, The European Court of Human Rights, rejected the criminalisation of boycotts directed against Israel, ruling clearly ‘against the prosecution of non-violent activists and affirming boycotts as a legitimate exercise of freedom of expression’.
The German Parliament’s anti-BDS resolution has since catalysed an escalation in censorship with Berlin police banning Palestinian solidarity rallies, where hundreds of demonstrators have been detained and arrested as well as being subjected to disturbing violence by Berlin police.
As artists, we believe it is our duty to use our platforms to oppose the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine and to stand firmly against censorship of our freedom of expression.
It is for this reason that we support all artists choosing to cut ties with the music platform HÖR Berlin for its censorship of solidarity with Palestinians under the guise of ‘content moderation’.
HOR Berlin’s 5 Nov 2023 statement asserted that ‘there are symbols that, for some audiences, are controversial, which we will not allow’.
In the past few weeks artists playing HÖR Berlin described being questioned and asked to remove attire that promotes solidarity with Palestinians. In the most egregious example, HÖR Berlin explicitly censored an artist who wore clothing depicting historic Palestine as it confirmed itself in an email to contributors.
Yet HÖR Berlin has previously allowed other expressions of solidarity, such as platforming an artist wearing an ‘ARM UKRAINE NOW’ shirt which was followed by burning a poster of Vladimir Putin on set.
Another artist performed on the platform who defined genocide into the microphone before revealing a shirt stating, ‘Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine’. Ukrainian flags are shown on set, and posters stating ‘Russia is a Terrorist State’ have been endorsed, yet acts of solidarity for Palestine and the Palestinian people are curtailed. The double standards and suppression of acts of solidarity with Palestine and the Palestinian people is why we are calling for a boycott.
In 2020, directors of 32 of Germany’s leading cultural institutions, including the Goethe-Institut, accompanied by an open letter signed by over 1000 artists, academics and cultural workers, expressed deep concern about the German parliament’s anti-BDS resolution which has ‘been instrumentalised to distort, malign and silence marginalised positions, in particular those which defend Palestinian rights or are critical of the Israeli occupation’.
The 32 directors formed the ‘Initiative GG 5.3 Weltoffenheit’ (‘Weltoffenheit’ translattes to ‘world-openness’) – a reference to Article 5, Paragraph 3 of Germany’s Basic Law, which guarantees freedom of the arts and sciences. HÖR’s actions are in direct violation of that initiative.
Many artists over the last month have contacted HÖR and requested to have their mixes removed from its YouTube channel.
HÖR Berlin should end its involvement in shielding Israel’s decades-old oppression against Palestinians, especially while Israel carries out genocide against the Palestinian people, as UN experts have warned.
Until HÖR Berlin ends its censorship, we applaud all artists and musicians refusing to engage with this repressive, anti-Palestinian platform, in support of freedom of expression and in principled opposition to racism and censorship.
For more information, see instagram.com/sonic.solidarity
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