BDS advocates celebrate as Pussy Riot cancels Tel Aviv show
The group has not provided any information on the cancellation, but their local publicist cited "technical" and not political reasons.
By AMY SPIROUpdated: APRIL 9, 2018 00:12The members of Pussy Riot in the Red Square in Moscow(photo credit: ALEXANDER SOFEEV)
Russian punk-rock protest band Pussy Riot has canceled its upcoming show in Tel Aviv. But while supporters of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel are already celebrating, the reasons for the cancellation are far from clear.The band posted on its Facebook and Twitter accounts Sunday morning, “Pussy Riot’s Riot Days show in Israel (16 May) is canceled.” The group did not provide any further details and band members did not respond to multiple requests for comment via email.According to Moran Paz, who was handling local PR for the show, the reasons were not political.“The group’s show was canceled due to the band’s technical constraints,” Paz told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday. “The motive was not political.”And the band is still expected to arrive in Israel next month for a separate performance at the International Writers’ Festival in Jerusalem. According to organizers of the festival, the band is still scheduled to take part in the opening ceremony of the festival on May 8. “They haven’t canceled,” organizers told the Post on Sunday.According to a festival spokesperson, two of the band’s members, Maria Alyokhina and Olga Borisova, will be taking part in the opening night, and on May 10 Alyokhnia is slated to be interviewed by Zionist Union MK Merav Michaeli.Nevertheless, many supporters of the BDS movement against Israel were quick to celebrate the group’s cancellation of its Tel Aviv show.But according to the Walla news site, there were other motives at play. A source close to the local production reportedly told the news site that the reason was “amateurish behavior” from the group’s Russian producer, who signed a deal and then only later demanded more money than was agreed upon. “The group acted like a third-world country,” the source told Walla.
