over Barclaycard being used as its official payment partner, in protest against Barclays providing financial services to defence companies supplying Israel.
As a result of their boycott, punk bands Speed, Scowl and Zulu also pulled out of the festival over theBritish metalcore band Ithaca joined the boycott on Tuesday evening. “Once we were made aware of Barclays’ involvement in Download we knew we could no longer participate,” the band said in a statement to the Guardian.
This week members of activist group Palestine Action vandalised about 20 branches of Barclays across the UK, including smashing windows and daubing them with red paint; in Edinburgh, rocks inscribed with the names of dead Palestinians were thrown at a bank branch.Photograph: Vuk Valcic/ZUMA Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock
In a statement posted online, Barclays addresses the criticism. “We have been asked why we invest in nine defence companies supplying Israel, but this mistakes what we do,” the company wrote. “We trade in shares of listed companies in response to client instruction or demand and that may result in us holding shares.
Barclays also condemned the actions by Palestine Action this week, saying: “While we support the right to protest, we ask that campaigners do so in a way which respects our customers, colleagues and property.”