Massive Attack‘s Robert Del Naja has shared a statement slamming the “draconian government” after being arrested during a protest against the ban on Palestine Action.
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Del Naja was among hundreds of fellow demonstrators who took to Trafalgar Square on Saturday (March 12) to protest the ban on Palestine Action, and held up a sign that read “I Oppose Genocide, I Support Palestine Action”.
He was carried away from the demonstration by police and arrested on suspicion of showing support for a proscribed organisation, something he has now addressed in a lengthy statement shared to Instagram.
“Throughout the Israeli genocide in Gaza most people, myself included, felt like they were gradually going mad,” it began. “How could the world, including the British government, possibly allow this to happen?
“That sense of madness was compounded by the inexplicable policies of many British news outlets (including the BBC) who refused to name the identity committing one atrocity after another, after another. It was Israel, & everybody knew it was Israel. Why wouldn’t they say so?”
“On the topic of madness,” he added, “in Britain in 2026, you can be arrested under the Terrorism Act for sitting in silence, holding a cardboard sign stating that you oppose genocide & support non-violent action to prevent it.”
He went on to say “everyone knows this is total madness”, claiming this included the police officers making the arrests, and the High Court judges who recently ruled them unlawful.
Earlier this year, Massive Attack responded to the ban on Palestine Action being deemed unlawful by the high court, and said at the time that Keir Starmer’s government “wanted to punish those who made their complicity in a genocide visible”, and had “confected an authoritarian law to retaliate against peaceful citizens holding signs”.
Referencing the Filton 24 – who in 2024 allegedly broke into and sabotaged an Elbit Systems factory near Bristol which produces weapons for the Israeli military – they went on to say that “the highest price has been paid by those on the receiving end of this government’s vindictive guilt”.
In his recent statement, Del Naja said “everyone also knows that the sheer desperation of ‘Palestine Action’ activists vandalising military equipment isn’t terrorism. No one actually believes that.”
“Many members of [and] senior advisers to this government belong to a ‘war is peace’ ideological party block that ignored millions of peaceful marchers to illegally invade Iraq. Their brand of arrogance & callous indifference creates the human desperation they’re hellbent on crushing in the courts.”
He rounded off his post with a hopeful message, assuring fans “the sense or madness can be overcome”.
“We can demand that our government upholds international laws that previous generations sacrificed their lives for,” he said. “UK citizens will feel less desperation (and our overwhelmed courts will be quieter) if our country acts with the integrity of neighbours such as Spain; calmly declining the use of their territory & assets for illegal US / Israeli war crimes.”
Del Naja said that “a few hours in police custody under unlawful arrest is a very small price to pay” for those aims, concluding: “Our democracy, & the civil rights & liberties that now sit in constitutional law were literally built on small actions like these. Perhaps that’s why this draconian government wants to crush them?
“Free Palestine. No wars.”
Massive Attack have expressed support for Palestine in several other ways ways too, and last summer joined Primal Scream in slamming the government for allowing the arrest of “peaceful citizens” at a Palestine Action demonstration in London.
In September, they also joined Fontaines DC, Amyl & The Sniffers and over 400 other artists in backing the No Music For Genocide campaign, and later added that they would be fully boycotting Spotify. The latter, they said, was due to reports that the streamer’s CEO Daniel Ek had made significant investments “in a company [Helsing] producing military munition drones and AI technology integrated into fighter aircraft”.
At the time, a Spotify spokesperson said: “Spotify and Helsing are two totally separate companies”, and added that Helsing was “not involved in Gaza” and its efforts were “focused on Europe defending itself in Ukraine”.
Helsing themselves went on to add, per the Guardian: “Currently we see misinformation spreading that Helsing’s technology is deployed in war zones other than Ukraine. This is not correct.
“Our technology is deployed to European countries for deterrence and for defence against the Russian aggression in Ukraine only.”
Massive Attack have boycotted performing in Israel since 1999 and, last spring, issued a statement supporting Kneecap after it was announced that the Irish trio were under investigation by counter-terrorism police in the UK.
The case against Kneecap’s Móglaí Bap was dropped last September due to a technicality relating to the way in which it was brought about. At the time, the Chief Magistrate told the court that the charge was “unlawful” and “null”.
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