"The confirmation from legendary punk musician Jello Biafra that he would be playing a show in Israel came as an angry shock to many of his fans and supporters.
The former singer for the Dead Kennedys and well known activist announced recently that, despite having been urged to do otherwise by several groups in the Palestine solidarity movement, he and his band, the Guantanamo School of Medicine, will be performing in Tel Aviv on July 2. This comes in blatant defiance of the 2005 call for an artistic boycott put forth by over 170 Palestinian civil society groups.
In response, an ad-hoc grouping of global punk fans came together to launch Punks Against Apartheid, whose first action was to launch a petition and statement urging Biafra to abide by the call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) and cancel the Tel Aviv gig. In a few days, the petition gathered over 1,000 signatures, from Berkeley to London, and Beirut to South Korea. Below, we reprint Punks Against Apartheid's open letter to Biafra."
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