A concert by American rapper Kanye West, better known as Ye, at a Polish stadium in June was canceled by the venue on Friday.
“The (Kanye West) concert scheduled for June 19, 2026 at the SuperAuto.pl Silesian Stadium will not take place for formal and legal reasons,” venue director Adam Strzyzewski wrote in a press release on the stadium’s website.
The move comes after Britain banned western countries from entering the country, forcing them to cancel their presence there. He also postponed a concert in Marseille, France due to growing opposition from city authorities.
Survivors of the massacre have called on other European countries to take similar steps against the controversial rapper.
Ye is also banned from Australia, but he was able to perform in the US and Mexico City this year.
West has not commented on the cancellation of the Polish venue.
Why is there a backlash against Kanye West?
The 48-year-old artist, once one of the world’s most successful rappers, faced widespread condemnation when he began expressing anti-Semitic opinions and admiration for Adolf Hitler.
He has previously said, “I love Nazis”, sold swastika T-shirts on his website and released a track titled “Heil Hitler” last year.
The song is currently banned by major streaming platforms.
But in January this year it took out a full page advertisement wall street journal Admit your past behavior and apologize, saying “I’m not a Nazi or anti-Semite” and “I love Jewish people.”
The rapper said his controversial behavior was linked to a “manic episode” caused by his diagnosed bipolar disorder.
Poland says these are ‘promoters of criminal ideology’
Before the venue’s cancellation, Poland’s Ministry of Culture had previously said it would try to prevent West from performing in the country.
“Kanye West’s widely discussed actions related to promoting Nazism are in clear contradiction with Poland’s values,” Culture Minister Marta Sienkowska said, according to news agency AFP.
Sienkowska expressed her “categorically negative position” regarding the June concert in the western city of Chorzów and urged organizers “not to provide public space for promoters of criminal ideology.”
She also said she could not imagine organizing such a concert in Poland, “a country where people were murdered in German Nazi extermination camps,” Polish press agency PAP reported.
During the Nazi occupation in World War II, more than one million people were murdered on Polish soil in the Auschwitz death camp alone, the majority of whom were Jews.
The Nazis killed more than 3 million of Poland’s 3.2 million Jewish population. By the end of World War II in 1945, the Nazis had killed more than six million Jews in Europe.
Edited by: Wesley Dockery