Ireland’s national broadcaster has been called on to boycott the Eurovision Song Contest over Israel’s inclusion in the competition.
Irish actor Stephen Rea read the poem If I Must Die by Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, who was killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza, as he joined scores of protesters gathered at the main entrance to RTE’s campus in the Donnybrook area of Dublin on Friday evening.
The demonstrators, some wearing keffiyehs, waved Palestinian flags and held up banners with slogans including “you can’t culturewash genocide” and “you need to boycott Israel now”.
Organisers staged a mini-concert featuring short speeches as well as musical performances of anti-war and pro-Palestinian songs.
Those taking part were calling for Ireland to boycott Eurovision 2025, saying more than 70 former contestants have backed the campaign to see Israel’s national broadcaster KAN banned.
They note that the organisation behind the event, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), indefinitely suspended Russia and Belarus in 2022.
The event featured artists, musicians and LGBT and human rights activists as well as the chairman of an RTE sub-branch of the NUJ Trevor Keegan.
RTE director general Kevin Bakhurst said it would not pull its entry – Laika Party performed by singer Emmy – out of the competition.
However, he said he had written to the EBU, chaired by Irishman and former RTE director general Noel Curran, to ask for a “discussion” on Israel’s inclusion in the contest in May.
Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign chairwoman Zoe Lawlor accused Israel’s national broadcaster of attempting to “culturewash” an apartheid ideology at Eurovision.
She said: “It’s vital to exclude the genocidal apartheid state of Israel from this global cultural platform now.
“Ireland showed the way in the 1980s, standing resolutely against the racist and murderous crimes of apartheid South Africa.
“RTE can help do the same now, by withdrawing its participation and standing on the side of humanity, equality and human rights.”
Earlier on Friday, several pro-Palestine demonstrators picketed outside a BBC studio in Belfast city centre.
The activists banged dustbin lids on walls and shouted chants criticising the corporation’s coverage of the conflict in Gaza.
They also called for a boycott of Eurovision, to which the BBC is sending Remember Monday with the song What the Hell Just Happened?
Eurovision, which is hosted by the EBU, will begin on May 13 in Switzerland with the final on May 17.
Israel is set to be represented at the contest by Yuval Raphael, 24, a survivor of the October 7 2023 Hamas attack.
