LONDON: A prominent Welsh singer who has appeared at pro-Palestine events in the UK has been visited by police after her family faced online threats, The Independent reported on Tuesday.
Charlotte Church has taken part in major campaigns calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, including a Sing for Palestine fundraising event late last month.
The 38-year-old has denied accusations of antisemitism for leading a rendition of a song based on the slogan “From the River to the Sea,” saying in a statement: “I hold the Jewish people in my life very dearly, and have always kept great reverence for Judaism and Jewish culture, since travelling around Israel and Palestine as a teenager.”
After appearing at a protest in London last Saturday, Church said her family had been threatened “by some pretty scary people.” The online hate had led to police involvement to safeguard the singer and her family.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism, a British-based NGO, has led the antisemitism allegations against Church, and has called on the Charity Commission to investigate her activities.
She said the campaign has resulted in her receiving “imaginative and violent hate,” and being labeled a “traitor.”
In a statement on her website, Church said: “The threats to my safety have resulted in the police coming round to check in on us. My safety and the safety of my family has been threatened by some pretty scary people, emboldened by the rhetoric of frontline politicians, as well as cravenly irresponsible coverage by liberal legacy media outlets.”
She added that her rendition of “From the River to the Sea” aimed to raise money for a new ambulance for Al-Awda hospital in Gaza.
Church denied that the slogan “is in any way a call for the ethnic cleansing or genocide of Israelis.”
She said: “A call for one group’s liberation does not imply another’s destruction, and those suggesting that it does, when it is in fact that first group who are currently being murdered in their thousands, are leveraging a grotesque irony.
“I will not have my rhetoric around resistance and solidarity redefined by those who most violently oppose my democratic engagement.”
