The mayor of Munich slammed Roger Waters, co-founder of the British band Pink Floyd, for his stoking of antisemitism against Israel, triggering an angry reaction from the singer on Friday.
Waters’s attorney demanded that social democratic mayor Dieter Reiter delete his press statement accusing Waters of antisemitism. Reiter said Waters is responsible for “growing, intolerable antisemitic statements.” Reiters office said a city attorney will review Waters request.
Waters performed a concert on Wednesday in Munich’s Olympic Hall. Reiter said that it was not possible to prevent the hall from being rented to Waters. However, Reiter said the Olympic Hall will not be rented to Waters in the future, due to his advocacy of the boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) campaign against the Jewish state.
Reiter said that it “is important for me to make it unmistakably clear ahead of the concert that antisemitic propaganda of Roger Waters is neither welcome in Munich nor will it remain unanswered.”
The Munich city council passed a resolution that the mayor supported last year barring space in public facilities and finances for pro-BDS activity. Munich was the first German city to pass anti-BDS legislation.
Waters’s lawyer said Reiter’s allegations resemble a call to boycott him.
Waters himself has previously said that he was the victim of the “Jewish lobby” that was “extraordinarily powerful.”
Waters wrote on his Twitter feed: “Dieter Reiter, the Mayor of Munich, has issued a press release denouncing me as antisemitic. The Mayor claims I make increasingly hateful antisemitic remarks. I stand for human rights.”
Dieter Reiter, the Mayor of Munich, has issued a press release denouncing me as anti-Semitic.
The Mayor claims I make increasingly hateful anti-Semitic remarks.
I stand for human rights.
Here is what I said 2 nights ago in Cologne unedited: https://t.co/1fDW8rY8yJ pic.twitter.com/dGvLqxpweE
— Roger Waters (@rogerwaters) June 13, 2018
