Organisers cancel Kamp Pustai festival

BELGRADE - The organisers of the Kamp Pustai Music Festival in Novi Becej, in the Serbian province of Vojvodina, cancelled the event after accusations that the festival programme features the performance of Hungarian Neo-Nazi Balazs Sziva and his rock band.

One of the camp organisers Ferenc Erman told Tanjug on Friday that the festival was cancelled after various accusations appeared in the media, and added that Sziva was never supposed to perform at the festival.

Erman said that the camp was cancelled to avoid potential provocations after the appearance of unfounded accusations, and added that the organisers would never allow a Nazi band or performer to appear on stage during the event.

Erman told Tanjug on Thursday that the event is not a festival but a closed-type summer camp, adding that no such Hungarian band would have performed because they would not have been allowed to do so.

The Novi Sad-based Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) was the first to warn against the performance of Sziva, the singer of the Hungarian Neo-Nazi rock band Romanticus Eroszak (Romantic Violence), and their warning was followed by reactions of the Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Serbia which called for a ban of the controversial performance.

AFA warned on Thursday that the three-day festival which was supposed to begin in Arac near Novi Becej on August 19 serves as a replacement for the banned EMI-Tabor festival which had been organised for years by Hungarian fascists in Vojvodina, Transylvania and Slovakia.

AFA called on all anti-fascists to stand in the way of the public fascist events regardless of the national community it may come from.

Photo freeimages.com/cricava (illustration)