logo
Glasgow venue closes to 'prioritise safety' after protest

Glasgow venue closes to 'prioritise safety' after protest

Glasgow Times2 days ago

The Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) in Glasgow city centre announced it will be shut after a crowd attempted to stage a takeover on Tuesday.
On social media, the spot announced: "In light of recent events and ongoing conversations involving the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA), we've made the decision to keep the building closed to the public for the remainder of this week.
"This is not a decision we take lightly, but we recognise the need to pause. The temporary closure will allow us to prioritise the safety and well-being of our staff and partners, and to create space for reflection.
"We understand the strength of feeling being expressed by our community, and we remain committed to engaging with this moment thoughtfully.
"We will be sharing further updates in the coming days. Thank you for your support, and for your patience."
Glasgow venue closes to 'prioritise safety' after protest (Image: Newsquest)
READ NEXT: LIVE: Huge police presence in city centre as activists stage takeover
Palestine protestors took over CCA in Glasgow city centre
(Image: Newsquest) We reported at the time that a group of activists staged a sit-in.
The action prompted a huge police response, with three police buses, four vans, and a patrol car deployed to the scene.
Officers were observed both inside the CCA building and stationed outside on the street.
According to the group, the demonstration was sparked by the CCA board's refusal to adopt a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) policy or to endorse the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI).

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Police look into ‘death to the IDF' chants at Glastonbury
Police look into ‘death to the IDF' chants at Glastonbury

Times

time2 hours ago

  • Times

Police look into ‘death to the IDF' chants at Glastonbury

There are many things to consider when preparing for Glastonbury: sort out your travel arrangements, wear in the new walking boots, make sure to pack the tent poles and take plenty of suncream. For some, however, the most important thing not to forget is their flag. They are a practical solution to finding friends when you have lost each other among the 200,000-strong crowd, 100 stages and 23 campsites on the 1,000 acres of Worthy Farm. They can also be used to make a statement about Palestine. • Glastonbury 2025: follow live Vivienne Booth, 48, a nursery teacher, was flying a Palestine flag she had been given in the Green Futures field, an educational hub at the festival, as she prepared to watch the rappers Kneecap. She said: 'We're trying to get the BBC to show as many [of them] as possible. Starmer needs to be a Labour Party politician rather than a Conservative leader and then maybe we'd be getting somewhere.' Last week, the prime minister declared that it would not be appropriate for Kneecap to perform at the festival after its band member, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, 27, was charged with a terrorist offence after allegedly displaying a flag in support of the proscribed organisation Hezbollah at a London gig. Bob Vylan, the English punk duo on before the Irish outfit, led the crowd in chants of 'death to the IDF'. It prompted Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, to contact Tim Davie, the BBC's director-general, and demand 'an urgent explanation about what due diligence it carried out ahead of the Bob Vylan performance', a government spokesperson said. 'We strongly condemn the threatening comments made by Bob Vylan at Glastonbury,' they added. During Kneecap's own set, which was not broadcast by the BBC, the trio led the crowd in several chants of 'f*** Keir Starmer' and 'free Palestine'. Police confirmed they were looking into 'comments made by acts on the West Holts stage'. The Avon and Somerset force said: 'Video evidence will be assessed by officers to determine whether any offences may have been committed that would require a criminal investigation.' Sharren Haskel, Israel's deputy foreign minister, told The Mail on Sunday: 'I condemn the BBC for continuing to live-stream anti-Israel hate speech from Glastonbury. 'What do you think the BBC would have done had a performer been shouting anti-Muslim or far-right hate speech? They would have pulled the feed. But because the target is Israel — let's be honest, because it's Jews — it's tolerated, even broadcast.' A BBC spokesperson said: 'Some of the comments made during Bob Vylan's set were deeply offensive. During this live-stream on iPlayer, which reflected what was happening on stage, a warning was issued on screen about the very strong and discriminatory language. 'We have no plans to make the performance available on demand.' Some in the festival's crowd had seized the opportunity to turn conflict into cash, selling Palestinian flags for £10. In 2010, after some complaints about flags obstructing the stage, festival organisers consulted fans over whether there should be a ban on them altogether. 'Our gut feeling here at festival HQ is that they shouldn't be banned as we think they add to the magic,' a festival spokeswoman said at the time. A total of 55 per cent out of 13,178 voters from 71 countries eventually voted to keep the flags. Many prefer the personal to the political. The choice of what to put on her flag was obvious for Joanna Stefanova, 28, a civil servant who lives in London, who was yesterday carrying a six-metre-tall aluminium flag to keep her group of six friends together. 'I got the picture printed of my two beautiful pussy cats, Justin and Jasper, because I miss them while I'm here,' she said. Among the bucket hats and beer cans, there were thousands of flags flapping in the wind, which sport everything from supermarket logos to pictures of the actress Gillian Anderson. The flag poles can be bought from Amazon for £27 and weigh about 700g. Some people attach the poles to their backpacks, but most opt to carry them in their hands so they can extend and lower them with ease. Toby Smith, 23, from Cambridge, resembled an ambassador for a budget supermarket. 'I promise I'm not affiliated with Lidl,' he laughed. 'I started collecting the Lidl merch in 2021 when they first released it … I've been messaging them on Instagram trying to get them to give me a flag. Although they responded initially, they went quiet, but they've released bandanas and so my mum sewed them together to make the flag.' Martha Kent, 27, carried a pink flag featuring 'her favourite lesbian icons', including Anderson, who is regarded as an LGBTQ+ advocate for her comments in support of the community, and the footballer Leah Williamson. Others were more obscure. Bernie Carey, 36, held a flag for her nine friends reading 'Dove, veto, more', which she explained was a rough translation into Italian for: 'Where are you, love?'

At least 81 people killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza, Hamas-run health ministry says
At least 81 people killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza, Hamas-run health ministry says

BBC News

time5 hours ago

  • BBC News

At least 81 people killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza, Hamas-run health ministry says

At least 81 Palestinians have been killed and more than 400 injured in Israeli strikes across Gaza in the 24 hours until midday on Saturday, the Hamas-run health ministry one incident, at least 11 people, including children, were killed after a strike near a stadium in Gaza City, Al-Shifa hospital staff and witnesses told news agencies. The stadium was being used to house displaced people, living in verified by the BBC shows people digging through the sand with their bare hands and spades to find BBC has contacted the Israeli military for US President Donald Trump said he was hopeful a ceasefire could be agreed in the next week. Qatari mediators said they hoped US pressure could achieve a deal, following a truce between Israel and Iran that ended the 12-day conflict between the March, a two-month ceasefire collapsed when Israel launched fresh strikes on Gaza. The ceasefire deal - which started on 19 January - was set up to have three stages, but did not make it past the first two included establishing a permanent ceasefire, the return of remaining living hostages in Gaza in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Thursday, a senior Hamas official told the BBC mediators have intensified their efforts to broker a new ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza, but that negotiations with Israel remain stalled.A rally was organised on Saturday evening in Tel Aviv calling for a deal to free the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. Organisers said "the time has come to end the fighting and bring everyone home in one phase".Meanwhile, Israeli attacks in Gaza continue. Friday evening's strike near the Palestine Stadium in Gaza City killed at least 11 people, hospital staff and witnesses witness said they were sitting when they "suddenly heard a huge explosion" after a road was hit."This area was packed with tents - now the tents are under the sand. We spent hours digging with our bare hands," Ahmed Qishawi told the Reuters news agency. He said there are "no wanted people here, nor any terrorists as they [Israelis] claim... [there are] only civilian residents, children, who were targeted with no mercy," he BBC has verified footage showing civilians and emergency services digging through the sandy ground with their hands and spades to find bodies. Fourteen more people were reported killed, some of them children, in strikes on an apartment block and a tent in the al-Mawasi strike in al-Mawasi killed three children and their parents, who died while they were asleep, relatives told the Associated Press."What did these children do to them? What is their fault?" the children's grandmother, Suad Abu Teima, told the news people were reported killed on Saturday afternoon after an air strike on the Tuffah neighbourhood near Jaffa School, where hundreds of displaced Gazans were sheltering. The strike killed at least eight people, including five children, the Palestinian health ministry witness Mohammed Haboub told Reuters that his nephews, father and the children of his neighbours were killed in the strike."We didn't do anything to them, why do they harm us? Did we harm them? We are civilians," he told the news health ministry said ambulance and civil defence crews were facing difficulties in reaching a number of victims trapped under the rubble and on the roads, due to the impossibility of movement in some of the affected areas. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not yet commented on these reported strikes. The IDF released a statement on Saturday evening saying it had killed Hakham Muhammad Issa al-Issa, a senior figure in Hamas's military wing, in the area of Sabra in Gaza City on Israeli military launched its bombardment of Gaza in response to Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken than 56,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

Kneecap at Glastonbury review – sunkissed good vibes are banished by rap trio's feral, furious flows
Kneecap at Glastonbury review – sunkissed good vibes are banished by rap trio's feral, furious flows

The Guardian

time6 hours ago

  • The Guardian

Kneecap at Glastonbury review – sunkissed good vibes are banished by rap trio's feral, furious flows

It is perhaps worth recalling Kneecap's appearance at last year's Glastonbury, a lunchtime set in the Woodsies tent that saw the band widely acclaimed as bringers of boozy, edgy hilarity, complete with songs called Get Your Brits Out and Rhino Ket. Twelve months and some provocative onstage comments about Palestine and Conservative MPs later, they're both folk devil and cause celebre, whose appearance at the festival is the most hotly debated of 2025 – both the prime minister and the leader of the opposition have had strong opinions about it. It's a perfect example of how quickly stories can become overheated in the 21st century: vastly more people now have a opinion about Kneecap than have ever heard their music, which is, traditionally, a tricky and destructive position for a band to find themselves in. Invoking a name one probably shouldn't invoke under the circumstances, you might want to ask the surviving members of the Sex Pistols how that worked out for them. Still, the West Holts area is so packed, it has to be closed down to prevent a crush. The stage is barely visible for flags, most, but not all of them, Palestinian (there's still room for WE LIKE TO MOVE IT MOVE IT, SMITHY'S ON A BENDER and indeed I EAT ASS – THAT'S AMORE). Kneecap themselves seem happy to lean into the controversy: their appearance is preceded by a montage of voices condemning the band – Sharon Osbourne figures heavily – and much booing from the audience. Their ongoing travails are regularly referenced – 'everyone in that fucking tent agreed with me', protests Mo Chara (real name Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh) about the Coachella appearance that intensified the whole business. Bandmate Móglaí Bap suggests that the audience should attend Ó hAnnaidh's forthcoming court hearing – he's been charged with what Bap calls a 'trumped up' terrorism-related offence for allegedly displaying a Hezbollah flag at a London gig, for which Mo Chara has been unconditionally bailed – and 'start a riot outside the courts … the Daily Mail will love that! Fuck the Daily Mail! Fuck Keir Starmer!' The latter is among a longer list of enemies that also includes Rod Stewart, who's made the impressively ballsy choice to preface his Glastonbury appearance with an expression of support for Nigel Farage. It's probably too late to say that it would be a shame if said controversy completely drowned out Kneecap's actual music, but the point stands. Behind the furore, the trio are really good at what they do. Chara and Bap are impressive rappers – raw-throated but dextrous, far funnier than you might expect if the only stuff you heard about Kneecap revolved around recent events. And live, their sound comes into its own, a fizzing stew with a bassy intensity that has a hint of the Prodigy about it: Fine Art's sudden lurches from dubstep to four-to-the-floor pounding; Get Your Brits Out's warped take on classic Chicago house. As the crowd break into circle pits and moshing, with a degree of encouragement from the band, it feels genuinely exciting, a feral moment in a festival that's thus far tended towards sunkissed good vibes. What happens next – whether Kneecap's ongoing notoriety turns out to be a brief flashpoint, something more lasting, or indeed ultimately the undoing of them – remains to be seen. For now, for this audience, they are triumphant.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store