Russian police shut down another concert by the IC3PEAK musical duo on Thursday night in southern Russia, the second such incident in the past week, in what the musicians have called a government crackdown on freedom of expression.
The Russian tech duo has had at least six concerts shut down after the release of their “Death No More” music video in late October, which has widely been interpreted as being critical of the Kremlin.
Last Saturday, police shortly detained the duo at a train station in Novosibirsk after their concert in the Siberian city had been canceled under pressure from local authorities. The group told The Moscow Times in an interview late last month that they had been tailed by members of the Federal Security Service (FSB), who pressured them to leave Perm, where they had been scheduled to stage a concert.
IC3PEAK’s latest show was canceled on Thursday in the southern city of Voronezh after police officers, together with representatives of the Rospotrebnadzor consumer rights watchdog, closed the venue on the day of their performance over “sanitary concerns,” the Mediazona news outlet reported.
The venue’s managers disputed the grounds for the shutdown, telling the Svoboda radio station that the watchdog had not performed any sanitary checks that day.
Mediazona later reported that police officers had arrested one concertgoer and assaulted the duo’s tour manager.
Social media footage showed IC3PEAK performing their “Death No More” song together with fans outside the venue after the show was canceled.
The song’s chorus features the words: “I am pouring gasoline over my eyes… Let it all burn… All of Russia is watching me.”
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