In a scathing post to its Instagram Stories, the band decried the government’s treatment of peaceful protestors and the LGBTQ+ community.
Robert Del Naja (L) and Daddy G (R) of Massive Attack performs during Electric Picnic 2018 at Stradbally Hall Estate on Sept. 1, 2018 in Dublin, Ireland. Kieran Frost/Redferns
As the people of Georgia continue to rally against their government’s stringent “foreign agents” law, U.K. trip-hop collective Massive Attack is joining them in protest.
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In a message shared to the band’s Instagram Stories on Wednesday morning (June 12), Massive Attack announced that it would be canceling its July 28 show in Georgia over what the group called the government’s “attack on basic human rights.”
“At this moment, performing at the state-owned Black Sea Arena could be seen as an endorsement of their violent crackdown against peaceful protests and civil society,” the message read. “Beatings, arrests, threats, and violence against peaceful protestors, activists, and opponents, along with laws smearing civil society and denying LGBTI rights, go against everything we stand for.”
Over the last few weeks, protests have broken out across Georgia in response to the government’s recently passed “foreign agents” law, which requires media and non-profit organizations receiving more than 20% of their funding from outside of the country to register themselves as foreign agents acting in the interest of a foreign power. While President Salome Zourabishvili officially vetoed the bill on May 18, claiming that it contradicted the Georgia’s constitution, the Georgian Dream party overrode the veto shortly after, passing the bill into law.
Opponents of the law point to its similarity to Russia’s own repressive foreign agents law, and argue that its implementation will impact Georgia’s chances at joining the European Union, which the vast majority of citizens support.
In closing its statement, Massive Attack said that the group’s members “stand in solidarity” with the protestors. “[We] feel that it is their voices that need to be heard and their struggle that needs to be under the international spotlight,” the collective wrote. “We’ll return and perform with you in freedom. #ProtecttheProtest”
