Over 175 Musicians have pledged to boycott Amazon and its festivals over its contracts with ICE.
What We Know:
- Over 175 Musicians have signed an open letter stating that they plan to boycott festivals associated with Amazon over the company’s contracts with the government agency U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
- The campaign ‘No Music for ICE’ was launched on October 23, 2019, and has secured pledges from Speedy Ortiz, Deerhoof, Priests, Downtown Boys, Jeff Rosenstock and more. It was launched in response to Amazon Web Services’ upcoming event in Las Vegas called Intersect Fest. Intersect Fest will take place from December 6th to the 7th with scheduled performances from the Foo Fighters, Brandi Carlile, Beck, Anderson Paak, H.E.R. and more.
- The letter calls for a boycott of Amazon until the company terminates existing contracts with the military, law enforcement, and government agencies (ICE, CBP, ORR) that commit human rights abuses. The letter also calls for Amazon to stop providing Cloud services & tools to organizations that power the US government’s deportation machine. They also want them to end projects that encourage racial profiling and discrimination, such as Amazon’s facial recognition product and reject future engagements with these damaging companies.
- The artists in the letter state “We the undersigned artists are outraged that Amazon continues to provide the technical backbone for ICE’s human rights abuses. We will not allow Amazon to exploit our creativity to promote its brand while it enables attacks on immigrants, communities of color, workers, and local economies. We call on all artists who believe in basic rights and human dignity to join us.”
- Amazon has faced pushback over ties to ICE before when a group of Whole Foods workers called for the parent company to cut ties to the agency in August.
No artists who are currently scheduled to perform at Intersect Fest have signed the petition.
