From top: National Chairperson of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign Fatin Al Tamimi; IPSC’s National Organiser Aisling Micklethwaite and IPSC’s press officer Betty Purcell; gardaí
This afternoon.
Outside RTÉ Studios in Donnybrook, Dublin 4.
Members of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and their supports, protest against Israel hosting this year’s Eurovision Song Contest and call for RTE to boycott the event.
Meanwhile…
A few moments ago…
On RTÉ One’s News at One…
The head of the Irish Eurovision Delegation, RTÉ’s Michael Kealey responded to calls for a boycott and to the protest currently taking place outside RTÉ studios.
He told journalist Áine Lawlor that RTÉ is a public service broadcaster and doesn’t “take political stands”.
He said taking political stands is “not something we do”, before adding that the Eurovision is about music and not politics.
And he added: “If we introduce politics, you’ll have to look at the whole Eurovision itself.”
Listen back in full here
Update:
The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign fanatics, true to form,have today launched a bullying campaign of harrassment,targeting Sarah McTernan, Irelands entrant in Eurovision song contest to intimidate her into refusing to take part in Tel Aviv.Odd way of marking Int Womens Day
— Alan Shatter (@Alan__Shatter) March 8, 2019
Update:
I visited today’s #eurovision protest outside RTÉ today to tell protestors of the Dublin Broadcasting Branch pledge to support any @NUJofficial member who doesn’t wish to participate in coverage on conscientious grounds. pic.twitter.com/7WDaq59Tvv
— emma o kelly (@emma_okelly) March 8, 2019
Protest at RTÉ calls for boycott of Eurovision song contest (RTE)
Earlier: EU May Like This
Second last pic: Barry Lenihan
“[T]he Eurovision is about music and not politics.”
Pull the other one.
Yep, it’ always been about politics. They just don’t like when it’s explicit.
That “to exist is to resist” graffiti is weird.
Flatus in a hurricane, if you want to stop Eurovision in Israel, put pressure on loss-making RTE to suspend its very expensive membership of the “European” Broadcasting Union, the secretive Swiss-based organisation run by ex-RTE boyo which doesn’t publish audited financial accounts.
Former DG of RTE Noel Curran now Director General of EBU , his brother Richard a journalist with
the Independent covering business and also has a slot on Saturday Morning on RTE Radio 1
That’s what qualifies as a large crowd?
“political stands is ‘not something we do’ ” – except of course when their CEO Dee Forbes actively lobbies the govt for an increase in the license fee and more public funds.
The finger in the corner of the top pic is infuriating.
wha?
Oh well, it was there earlier.
Either that or I’ve lost the plot/eyesight completely.
Yeah look at the all Eurovision itself then!
I just noticed that Israel is not in Europe…problem solved.
You can go to Israel on Erasmus: I only found that out yesterday.
There certainly is an unusual relationship between Israel and the EU.
Mare nostrum.
Where is there not an unusual relationship when you include Israel?
For RTE is about the jolly , nice trip abroad for the lads …
Is that a LGBT flag I see in one of the pics? Good luck flying that with your Islamist friends.
Down with Jews- sorry – Zionists !
I wonder is the same kind of thing that’s going on in the UK labour party going here? The ould Socialist – Palestinian link. Some of them support Hamas I’d say.
“Some of them support Hamas I’d say.”
Would you? I assume you can support that statement with some links.
I’d say most of the Irish supporters of the Palestinian cause have no clue what they are supporting. FGM, persecution of homosexuals, diverting aid funds away from essential services, using the population as human shields, denying education to its children. Never mind that the STATED aim of Hamas is the destruction of Israel and the elimination of the Jewish people.
That’s what they are supporting.
I find it astounding the mental gymnastics some will go through to disconnect themselves from feeling any kind of empathy with the suffering their fellow human beings are undergoing. Why would think this protest is in support of a political group rather that a show of solidarity for Palestinian people? There isn’t a single banner in any of those photos that says “Hamas”
Mel / gobbledy
+1 f lawless as always.
Thats a lot of assumptions you’re making there mel, what are your thoughts on the racist right wing government of Israel and the oppression they are visiting upon the Palestian people every day?
RTE has been playing political poker since it first started television transmissions of
last day of December 1961 and what is Israel doing in the EBU or indeed the Eurovision
anyways
Winning it?