Irish-language rap group Kneecap performed to tens of thousands of people at the UK’s Glastonbury Festival on Saturday, where they led the crowds in chants of “Free Palestine” and “Fuck Keir Starmer,” after the British Prime Minister said he didn’t think it “appropriate” for the trio to play the festival, given the terror offense charges one of its members is currently facing.

The group has made headlines in recent months with their pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel stance, and one of their members has been charged with a terror offense for allegedly supporting Hezbollah.

Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag and shouting “up Hamas, up Hezbollah,” at a concert in London in November. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August.

At least 30,000 people, hundreds of them with Palestinian flags, crammed into the West Holts stage in blazing sunshine to watch the trio on Saturday, causing organizers to close the area.

“Glastonbury, I’m a free man”, said Ó hAnnaidh.

The Belfast trio’s performance opened with an audio montage of news clips referring to the band’s critics and legal woes.

Between numbers, the band members led the audience in chants of “Free Palestine” and “Free Mo Chara,” and aimed an expletive-laden chant at the British prime minister.

“The Prime Minister of your country, not mine, said he didn’t want us to play, so fuck Keir Starmer,” said Ó hAnnaidh, who was wearing the tradition Palestinian wearing the keffiyeh scarf.

“This situation can be quite stressful but it’s minimal compared to what the Palestinian people are [facing],” he said.

Ó hAnnaidh also gave a shoutout to Palestine Action Group, which the UK’s interior minister Yvette Cooper announced last week would become a banned group under the Terrorism Act of 2000.

Fellow band member DJ Provai wore a t-shirt dedicated to the anti-Israel campaign group, whose actions have come under scrutiny after its activists broke into a British Royal Air Force base and vandalized two planes.

Before Kneecap took to the stage, rap punk duo Bob Vylan led the crowd in chants of “Death, death to the IDF.”

“Hell yeah, from the river to the sea, Palestine must be, will be, free,” added the duo’s singer, Bobby Vylan, who goes only by his stage name.

He also regaled the crowd with a profanity-laden story about his old record label manager, who he said would “speak very strongly about his support for Israel.”

“We have done it all, from working in bars to working for fucking Zionists,” he said, to boos from the crowd.

During their performance, the duo displayed a large message on stage, reading: “Free Palestine. United Nations have called it a genocide. The BBC calls it a ‘conflict’.”

The performance was aired live by the BBC, the UK’s public broadcaster, but was not made available to rewatch on BBC iPlayer.

The decision to remove the performance from the BBC’s streaming service was welcomed by the UK’s culture secretary Lisa Nandy, who said that she had demanded an “urgent explanation” from the BBC as to why the performance wasn’t vetted ahead of the live broadcast.

In response, a BBC spokesperson said that during the set, “a warning was issued on screen about the very strong and discriminatory language.”

They added that there were “no plans” to make the performance available to rewatch on iPlayer.

Unlike Bob Vylan, Kneecap’s performance wasn’t shown live by the BBC, due to its failure to meet the broadcaster’s obligations to impartiality and offensive language.

In a statement, the corporation said: “Whilst the BBC doesn’t ban artists, our plans ensure that our programming meets our editorial guidelines.”

It said that the performance would likely be available on demand afterwards.

Amid the backlash surrounding both performances, the UK’s Avon and Somerset Police said they were looking into comments made on stage by both Bob Vylan and Kneecap.

“Video evidence will be assessed by officers to determine whether any offenses may have been committed that would require a criminal investigation,” they said.

Formed in 2017, Kneecap is known for anarchic energy, satirical lyrics and use of symbolism associated with the Irish republican movement, which seeks to unite Northern Ireland, currently part of the UK, with the Republic of Ireland.

To their fans, they are daring provocateurs who stand up to the establishment; to their detractors, they are dangerous extremists.

The group has faced criticism for lyrics laden with expletives and drug references, and for political statements, especially since videos emerged showing the band shouting “up Hamas, up Hezbollah” and calling for the death of British Conservative lawmakers.

They have since apologized for the latter incident, which sparked outrage as two MPs have been murdered in the UK in the past nine years, and many worry about their safety.

But the group denies the terrorism charge and says the video featuring the Hezbollah flag has been taken out of context.

Asked whether he regretted waving it, and other comments caught on camera, Chara told the Guardian in an interview published Friday: “Why should I regret it? It was a joke — we’re playing characters.”

Since Ó hAnnaidh was charged, the group has been pulled from a slew of summer gigs, including a Scottish festival appearance and various performances in Germany.

But Glastonbury organisers defied Starmer, who had said it was not “appropriate” for Kneecap to perform at Glastonbury, one of the country’s biggest and most famous music festivals.

“People that don’t like the politics of the event can go somewhere else,” Michael Eavis, co-founder of the festival, said in an article published in a free newspaper for festival-goers.

“There have been a lot of really heated topics this year, but we remain a platform for many, many artists from all over the world and, you know, everyone is welcome here,” Emily Eavis, one of the organizers, said.

During their hour-long set, Kneecap thanked both organizers for not bowing to the pressure to cancel their appearance.

Approached by the Daily Mail for comment following Saturday’s performances, Glastonbury Festival said only that it “does not condone hate speech or incitement to violence of any kind from its performers.”

Amid the anti-Israel rhetoric from some of the performers at the music festival, which draws a crowd of some 200,000 people annually, some in the crowd used the tradition of waving large flags during performances as an opportunity to draw attention to the plight of those taken hostage by Hamas during the October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel.

In particular, they drew attention to the victims of the October 7 massacre at the Nova music festival, where some 380 people were brutally killed.

One image circulating online showed a black flag with a yellow ribbon emblazoned on it waving above a flag reading “We Will Dance Again” — the name of a documentary about the Nova festival massacre.