‘Extreme intolerance’: Deborah Conway on concert abuse

Singer Deborah Conway and her musician husband Willy Zygier have decried the actions of protesters at a Hobart concert as “extreme intolerance”, after interruptions and threats at their show on Saturday night.

In the most extreme incident, a woman broke a wine glass and threatened another woman with its shattered stem during the fracas.

The altercation came as pro-Palestinian protesters interrupted a concert by the wife-and-husband performers. Other audience members responded with abuse and heckling.

One protester unfurled a Palestinian flag and shouted that Conway had “openly supported the murder” of Palestinian children.

Conway and Zygier thanked members of the audience who spoke out against the protesters and police and security who provided protection.

"It was a dreadful display of extreme intolerance; we were all confronted with a micro example of civilisational breakdown but the forces for civil discourse triumphed in the end. We completed our show."

The pair describes the attack on Conway as "genocidal" as a classic blood libel, which took comments she had made about the conflict completely out of context.

"Calling Deborah genocidal, responsible for deaths etc & other ridiculous lies does your cause no good. None of it is true but somehow your movement have convinced themselves, and others, that ruining our careers will 'Free Palestine’. It’s the stuff of crazed ideologues.

"We understand people are inflamed and passionate and powerless but excoriating the other, bringing violence is counterproductive…Hobart is as far from the Middle East as you can get.”