(Buenos Aires) A complaint for “anti-Semitism” was filed Wednesday in Argentina against the British author, composer and performer Roger Waters, who complained of being unable to find accommodation in hotels in Montevideo and Buenos Aires where he is due to give concerts, denouncing a boycott led by “the Israel lobby”.
The former Pink Floyd co-founder and frontman, who just performed several concerts in Brazil as part of his “This Is Not a Drill” tour, is scheduled to perform in Montevideo on Friday, then in Buenos Aires next Tuesday and Wednesday.
But the 80-year-old artist told Argentine newspaper Pagina 12 that he had no choice but to stay in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where he performed on Saturday and Sunday, and travel to plane on the day of his concerts on both sides of the Rio de la Plata.
“Somehow these idiots from the Israel lobby managed to co-opt all the hotels in Buenos Aires and Montevideo and organized this extraordinary boycott based on malicious lies […] about me,” a- he told Pagina 12.
Contacted by AFP, the Montevideo hotels did not wish to comment.
The presidents of the Jewish Central Committee of Uruguay, Roby Schindler, and of the NGO B’Nai B’Rith, Franklin Rosenfeld, this week accused Roger Waters of being a “propagator” of Jewish hatred, in letters addressed at the Sofitel hotel in the Uruguayan capital and broadcast on social networks.
Mr. Schindler called Mr. Waters “misogynist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic,” while Mr. Rosenfeld threatened to launch an anti-Sofitel campaign if the hotel hosted “the anti-Semitic artist.”
“I have never had a single anti-Semitic thought in my entire life,” Roger Waters defended to Pagina 12, emphasizing that his critics point to the actions of the Israeli government.
On Wednesday, an individual filed a complaint in a Buenos Aires court against Roger Waters for “inciting racial hatred and advocating crimes,” arguing that the musician’s “position” entails “his certain and undeniable possibility of spreading his message of hatred and inciting the worsening of anti-Semitism” during his concerts in Argentina.
“We want the Argentine authorities to evaluate Mr. Waters’ behavior. The Migration Department can evaluate whether to ban him from entering the country,” said lawyer Carlos Broitman.
Several controversies surrounded the musician engaged in the defense of human rights in 2023. He denounced the Russian invasion of Ukraine before the UN, but also those who provoked it.
Or at a controversial concert in Berlin after which the US State Department blasted “anti-Semitic elements for denigrating Jews.” Mr. Waters championed “a message against fascism, injustice and bigotry in all its forms.”
In recent years, the musician has also defended actions to boycott Israeli products in the name of defending the Palestinian cause.
The “This Is Not a Drill” tour, which began in July 2022 in the United States before continuing in Europe, will end on December 9 in Ecuador after final performances in Chile, Peru, Costa Rica, and Colombia.
