{"id":28136,"date":"2025-05-02T08:42:49","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T08:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/kevin-rowland-says-freedom-of-speech-is-threatened\/"},"modified":"2025-05-02T08:42:50","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T08:42:50","slug":"kevin-rowland-says-freedom-of-speech-is-threatened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/kevin-rowland-says-freedom-of-speech-is-threatened\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Rowland says freedom of speech is threatened"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">The frontman of Dexys Midnight Runners has said people trying to &#8220;shut down&#8221; Kneecap is an &#8220;overreaction&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">Kevin Rowland, whose band&#8217;s hits included the 1982 number one hit Come On Eileen, said the controversy over the last week shows that freedom of expression is &#8220;under threat&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">Footage of a member of the rap trio Kneecap <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cp8kpljj26go\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 bGFWdi\">calling for MPs to be killed is being assessed by counter-terrorism police<\/a>, and they have faced a slew of concert cancellations, with growing calls for Glastonbury to cancel their appearance there next month.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">Mr Rowland is one of the 40 artists that signed an open letter supporting Kneecap and freedom of expression through both bands label Heavenly Recordings. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">He said: &#8220;This is about freedom of speech and artists&#8217; freedom of expression.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">The independent record label said in the caption: &#8220;These artists support the right to Freedom of Expression. This is an ever expanding list. If you are an artist who wishes to be added please DM us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cjdxvj7nmk3o\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The frontman of Dexys Midnight Runners has said people trying to &#8220;shut down&#8221; Kneecap is an &#8220;overreaction&#8221;. Kevin Rowland, whose band&#8217;s hits included the 1982 number one hit Come On Eileen, said the controversy over the last week shows that freedom of expression is &#8220;under threat&#8221;. Footage of a member of the rap trio Kneecap [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[9160,6513,9821,2157,6706],"class_list":["post-28136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-n-ireland","tag-freedom","tag-kevin","tag-rowland","tag-speech","tag-threatened"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28138,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28136\/revisions\/28138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}