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Protesters calling for a boycott of this year’s Eurovision song contest have gathered outside RTÉ headquarters in Donnybrook.
Singers, musicians, artists and activists are taking part in the protest organised by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
It features a “die-in” by health workers in scrubs depicting the Eurovision as a contest which it said was actively “art-washing” Israel’s war crimes.
Actor Stephen Rea will read the poem If I Must Die by Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer and singers Mary Coughlan and Hothouse Flowers frontman Liam Ó Maonlaí are among those performing at the event.
In a statement, Irish Boycott Eurovision 2024 Coalition Spokesperson and IPSC Chair, Zoe Lawlor said: “Israel’s President Yitzhak Herzog has stated ‘it’s important for Israel to appear in Eurovision’.
“We say the opposite. It’s vital to exclude the genocidal apartheid state of Israel from this global cultural platform.
“Ireland has shown the way in the 1980s in exposing the crimes of apartheid South Africa.
“It can do the same now, by withdrawing its participation, and standing on the side of humanity, equality and human rights.”
The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign has written to RTÉ Director General Kevin Bakhurst and the RTÉ board, asking them to respect the boycott request.
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