Roger Waters under investigation by German police for "inciting the masses" .
The former Pink Floyd musician, during a performance at the Mercedes Benz Arena in Berlin on May 17, presented himself dressed as a member of the SS . The images of Waters dressed in a long black coat with red armbands made the rounds of social networks, however, among the symbols worn by the artist, there was no swastika.
« We are investigating allegations of incitement to public hatred because clothing worn on stage could be used to glorify or justify Nazi rule . And once the procedure is completed, we will pass it on to the prosecutor for a final legal assessment," said the police spokesman, stressing that it will be up to the prosecutor to take any legal action. Already the day after the concert, criticism from the Israeli community had arrived, through the words written on Twitter by the Foreign Ministry, according to which the former Pink Floyd musician had " desecrated the memory of Anne Frank and 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust ".
In fact, during his performance Waters scrolled various names on a giant screen, metaphorically equating those of Anne Frank, Sophie Scholl , the anti-Nazi activist killed by the SS, Mahsa Amini , whose death was attributed to the Iranian morality police, of George Floyd , the African-American killed by the police in Minneapolis and also of Rachel Corrie, a US activist hit and killed by an armed Israeli bulldozer in southern Gaza in 2003. But above all Waters wrote the name by Shireen Abu Akleh, the Palestinian journalist for Al Jazeera killed last year in Jenin in a shootout between armed militiamen and the Israeli army . Israel had vehemently denied the intention, while admitting the possibility that the reporter could have been hit by weapons of its own armed forces.
At the end of the list, an inscription said that they are so brutal "because they want to crush our resistance and continue to rule the world" . This isn't the first time Waters has made headlines for his offstage actions. "It is not true that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was not provoked," he declared on February 8 before the UN Security Council, where he had been invited by Russia to speak. And it is certainly not the first time that Waters has come into conflict with Israel. The former Pink Floyd musician has never hidden his position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict .
(Unioneonline/L)
