After voicing their support for Palestine during a performance in the city-state, Massive Attack said they were “surprised and disappointed” by how Singaporean officials treated them. On Sunday, the group posted on Instagram that its members were “detained by the police, isolated and separately questioned” and that some of them had their passports temporarily seized and their hotel rooms searched.
During the band’s July 29 performance there, the two members raised a Palestinian flag and screamed “free Palestine” alongside the crowd. Massive Attack was then prohibited from returning to Singapore, which has strict laws governing public speech and assembly.
The two band members were prohibited from performing in Singapore and will not be permitted to return, a police spokesperson told the BBC on Friday. Grant Marshall and Robert Del Naja were “given stern warnings” about alleged violations of two statutes that govern political speech at public gatherings and prohibit the public flying of foreign flags.
According to Massive Attack, “large sections of the auditorium organically led chants of ‘Free Palestine’, presumably aware but undeterred that this spontaneous expression alone could violate their government’s censorship laws” both before and after the performance.
The band stated they “did not imagine that merely holding up the flag of a sovereign state recognised by 157 countries would violate any law” and called the scenario a “surreal experience” rather than explicitly addressing the ban.
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