The charging of Kneecap rapper Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh (27) with a terrorism offence by British authorities specifically relates to the alleged display of a flag associated with Lebanese armed group Hizbullah last November at one of the band’s gigs in Kentish Town, north London.
Under British law, it is an offence to show public support for proscribed groups named on a specific list.
Hizbullah, an Iran-backed Shia Muslim group, is part of the government in Lebanon but its private military wing has also fought several wars against Israel. It is named on the list of proscribed groups that is maintained and regularly updated under UK terrorism legislation.
Parts of Hizbullah have been proscribed in the UK since 2001. Its military wing, the Jihad Council, has been banned in Britain since 2008. In 2019, the entire Hizbullah movement was added to the UK‘s list after authorities said they could no longer distinguish between its military and political arms. The British government has accused the Islamist group of fomenting terrorism in Syria and Iraq.
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In video footage widely circulated online last month, a man was filmed onstage at Kneecap’s gig at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town on November 21st, draped in a yellow cloth, which it is alleged was the Hizbullah flag. In the footage, a man‘s voice was also heard to shout, “Up Hamas! Up Hizbullah!”
In the wake of criticism that followed the circulation of that footage, Kneecap released a statement last month saying the band “do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hizbullah ... We condemn all attacks on civilians, always. It is never okay.”
At the time of the gig, Israel was in a fierce military battle with Hizbullah in Lebanon and was also pounding the country with air strikes. The Israelis had invaded southern Lebanon the previous month after a year of border skirmishes between the two sides, which started soon after the October 7th attack on Israel by Palestinian group Hamas. A ceasefire was reached on November 26th.
When London‘s Metropolitan Police announced this week that Ó hAnnaidh had been charged, they cited the alleged wearing of the flag under section 13, part 1 (b) of the UK‘s Terrorism Act 2000.
This outlaws the wearing, display or carrying of any item that would “arouse reasonable suspicion” that the person “is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation”.
This specific legal provision has been used on several occasions over the last 20 months to convict people who have shown support for groups such as Hamas, which is also on the proscribed list.
In October 2023, a week after the Hamas attack on Israel, three women were spotted at a pro-Palestinian march in London with pictures of paragliders taped to their backs. Hamas’s attack a week earlier included scores of militants who paraglided over the border fence to land at the Nova music festival, where they killed 380 people.
The three women in London were convicted in February 2024 at the non-jury Westminster magistrates court, where they received 12 month conditional discharges – a conviction with no sentence.
Seven weeks after the Hamas attack, a man was arrested at another pro-Palestinian march in London wearing a green Islamic headband of the type often worn by Hamas fighters. He argued he was wearing it as “an item of Saudi Arabia and a statement of my faith”.
He was convicted at Westminster magistrates’ court, where he also received a three-month conditional discharge and no fine.
The maximum sentence under the provision used to charge Ó hAnnaidh is six months imprisonment and a fine of up to £5,000 (€6,000). He is due to appear at Westminster magistrates’ court on June 18th.
After he was charged, the band released a statement saying it was “political policing” to distract from Israel’s war in Gaza, which Kneecap has repeatedly criticised.
