Star Van Morrison, fiercely opposed to containment to fight the coronavirus, plans to challenge the ban on live music in bars in Northern Ireland due to the pandemic, his lawyer said on Tuesday.
Read also: Van Morrison and Eric Clapton release a song against containment
"
We are not aware of any credible scientific or medical evidence to justify this ban (...) and we will challenge it in the High Court
" of Belfast, the lawyer, Joe Rice, told AFP.
A third wave of the virus, attributed to a variant considered to be much more contagious, is currently raging in the United Kingdom, the most bereaved country in Europe with more than 91,000 deaths.
Faced with the strong spread of the virus, the different nations constituting the country have decided to reconfigure themselves, however with different timetables, each one deciding its own crisis strategy.
Northern Ireland, which reconfigured for six weeks just after Christmas, has banned live music in establishments licensed to sell alcohol.
Bars, pubs and restaurants are currently closed there, but the ban remained in place even when these establishments were allowed to reopen after previous lockdowns.
"
Pseudoscience"
"
Many people in the music and arts world in Northern Ireland have been financially, socially and artistically devastated by this total ban
," lawyer Joe Rice commented in a statement, noting that the rules are different in England. and Wales.
According to him, Van Morrison is taking the legal action “
on behalf of thousands of musicians, artists, venues and people involved in the live music industry
”.
At 75, the creator of
Gloria
and
Brown-eyed girl
had created controversy in August by denouncing the "
pseudoscience
" which he says surrounds the new coronavirus, in a call for live music, since withdrawn from his site Internet.
The following month, he announced the release of three songs in which he denounces as liberticide the confinement put in place at the height of the first wave of the pandemic, in the spring of 2020.
