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Germany’s Rammstein facing calls to cancel Swiss concerts

Women's rights groups and political organisations have demanded the cancellation of Rammstein's forthcoming concerts in Switzerland following multiple sexual assault allegations made against the German metal band's frontman.

Published: 10 June 2023 08:58 CEST
Till Lindemann, singer of German rock band Rammstein, is engulfed in flames as he performs at a Stockholm concert in the 90s.
Till Lindemann, singer of German rock band Rammstein, is engulfed in flames as he performs at a Stockholm concert in the 90s. Lindemann currently faces multiple sexual assault allegations. Photo: Tobias ROSTLUND / SCANPIX SWEDEN / AFP

Rammstein are scheduled to play two sold-out gigs at the Wankdorf Stadium in the Swiss capital Bern on June 17th and 18th, as part of their current European tour.

Several women have come forward recently to claim they were drugged and recruited to engage in sexual activity with singer Till Lindemann, 60, at Rammstein after-show parties.

Lawyers representing Lindemann categorically denied the allegations on Thursday.

READ ALSO: Rammstein frontman denies sexual assault allegations

Young Socialists Switzerland (JS), the Social Democratic Party’s youth movement, launched a petition urging the promoters to call off the Bern gigs.

“Maintaining the concerts means that the organiser is clearly behind Rammstein, which sends a very bad signal to those affected,” the petition said.

“We ask the concert organiser Gadget ABC to draw the necessary conclusions in this situation, to cancel the Rammstein concerts in Bern and to refund the ticket price to the spectators in full.”

Also backing the call were Brava, a non-governmental organisation against violence against women; feminist peace organisation CFD; and SP Frauen Schweiz, a progressive social democratic feminist movement.

“These accusations of sexual assault must be taken seriously,” said JS vice president Thomas Bruchez.

The only responsible thing to do in this context is to cancel the concerts,” he told Switzerland’s ATS news agency on Friday.

Blick newspaper reported that the Feminist Strike Collective Bern was considering possible action outside the stadium.

Rammstein, an industrial metal band founded in 1994, is known for grinding guitar riffs, taboo-breaking antics and theatrical stage shows heavy on pyrotechnics.

Their songs have dealt with subjects from cannibalism to necrophilia and the band name itself evokes the 1988 Ramstein air show disaster that killed 70 people and injured more than 1,000.

READ ALSO: German rockers Rammstein slammed over ‘repulsive’ Holocaust video clip

A young Irish woman posted on social media that she had been drugged and propositioned by Lindemann at a backstage party in Vilnius.

A wave of similar stories has since emerged recently through platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

German newspaper Die Welt reported on Tuesday that Alena Makeeva, a Russian woman accused of recruiting young women to engage in sexual practices with Lindemann, had been banned from all further Rammstein concerts.

READ ALSO: Who are Rammstein and why are they so big in Germany?

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CRIME

Swiss return three confiscated artefacts to Iraq

Switzerland on Friday returned to Iraq three important Mesopotamian objects seized during a criminal procedure, Bern said.

Published: 25 May 2024 09:03 CEST
Swiss return three confiscated artefacts to Iraq

During a ceremony at the culture ministry in Bern, Swiss Interior Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider handed over a partial statue and two Mesopotamian reliefs to Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein.

The three works, which are 1,700 to 2,800 years old, are “of great significance” to Iraq, the ministry said in a statement.

They were confiscated during a criminal procedure in the Geneva canton last year, it said.

The main person accused in that case was handed a prison sentence for document forgery and for violating the Cultural Property Transfer Act, which bans the transfer of stolen or looted cultural goods, the ministry said.

An additional 43 cultural items had been confiscated by Swiss authorities in the case, it added.

The three objects returned Friday were discovered and documented during official excavations in Iraq in 1846/47, 1959 and 1976. They all originated in Mesopotamia, today’s Iraq.

“They were subsequently removed from Iraq at an unknown date and possibly illegally,” the ministry said.

They include two large Assyrian reliefs from the 8th century BC that were found at the major archaeological site Nimrud-Kalhu.

There was also the fragment of a royal bust, wearing a pleated tunic and a royal mantle adorned with pendants, from the ancient city of Hatra in the second to third centuries AD.

Cultural items from Mesopotamia, known as the cradle of civilisation, are among the most endangered categories of Iraqi cultural goods, the Swiss culture ministry said.

They are particularly affected by illegal excavations, smuggling and illegal trading, leading UNESCO to add three sites in Iraq to its list of World Heritage in Danger, including the Hatra site.

Switzerland and Iraq are parties to a UNESCO convention aimed at protecting cultural heritage by banning and preventing illegal imports, exports and transfers of cultural property.

Friday’s restitution was the fifth from Switzerland to Iraq since 2005 and “by far the most significant”, the ministry said.

While the objects were officially returned to Iraq on Friday, the ministry said they would remain in Switzerland for now to feature in an exceptional exhibit at the ministry through June 7.

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