UK punk-rap duo Bob Vylan have been targets of alarmist Zionist PR campaigns ever since they led a chant of “death, death, death to the IDF” at Glastonbury, and they’ve suffered real material losses for taking that stand. They had to cancel a US tour after their visas were revoked, and they’ve had other shows dropped, including a European tour with Gogol Bordello. Most recently, they denied “celebrating” Charlie Kirk’s death. But now prominent UK press outlet has had to apologize and pay for some of the rhetoric that they’ve directed at Bob Vylan.
As the Press Gazette reports, the Manchester Evening News will pay £16,000 in damages to Bob Vylan vocalist Pascal Robinson, who performs as Bobby Vylan, after wrongly reporting that he “performed Nazi salutes on stage.” Reach, the publication’s parent company, has also apologized to Robinson.
The article, published on Oct. 6, was about all the people worried about a Bob Vylan show that was scheduled to take place in Manchester. (The show was then postponed.) In the artcile, the paper quoted the Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester, who said. “The band have mocked the murder of Charlie Kirk, performed Nazi salutes on stage, and spoken about finding ‘Zionists in the streets.'” This was presumably a deliberate misreading of the guided meditation and light stretching routine that Bob Vylan use to open their shows. The paper has since removed the thing about the Nazi salutes and added a correction.
Robinson says, “To have something rooted in mindfulness, peace, and connection distorted into a symbol of hate was both painful and outrageous… The truth matters, and we’re glad it’s now been recognized.”
