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COMBO board members Alex Teitz and Sheena Morgan with guest Steve Nelson! (Photo by David Barber, Rock on Colorado.com)

COMBO Board Member Alex Teitz sent a few articles that deal with the entertainment business in Colorado and elsewhere. We felt the information contained in these articles could be relevant to musicians and hope that you will take the time to read them.

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Does the Public Have a Right to Record a Homeless Sweeps Court Hearing?

[Editor’s note: This is here because many musicians are also activists for causes they perceive to be unjust. Mine is the Murder of Elijah McClain. Jeff Campbell, a long-time member of COMBO and an awesome singer/songwriter/rapper and playright, made a documentary of one of the homeless sweeps. Read on.]

By Conor McCormick-Cavanagh, Westword

The U.S. District Court of Colorado doesn’t allow members of the public to record proceedings at the courthouse in downtown Denver. And during the COVID-19 pandemic, the court has also made it clear that people tuning in to a virtual criminal hearing are prohibited from recording the proceedings.

But there’s been some ambiguity about civil cases, and now attorneys are getting ready to duke it out over whether members of the public should be allowed to record such cases from the comfort of their living rooms.

“Denver’s trying to keep further evidence of their unconstitutional actions suppressed and out of the public view,” says Andy McNulty, the Killmer, Lane & Newman attorney representing plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the City of Denver, along with state officials and others, regarding this past summer’s sweeps of homeless encampments.

Audio recordings from a hearing in connection with that case are included in an hour-long documentary about the city’s homeless encampment sweeps by Emancipation Theater Company, a project of Denver hip-hop and theater artist Jeff Campbell, which was released on social media February 12. The doc was the latest salvo in the “Message to the Mayor” campaign launched by From Allies to Abolitionists to draw attention to the effects of the sweeps on encampment residents. Campbell, in partnership with various local hip-hop artists, also recently recorded a “Message to the Mayor” rap music video on the same subject.

At around the six-minute mark, the documentary shares audio of Conor Farley, a Denver city attorney, questioning a Denver police officer during a January 11 federal court evidentiary hearing for the lawsuit filed by ten homeless plaintiffs and Denver Homeless Out Loud regarding the sweeps.
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This is a very important article, especially when it comes to the matter of documentaries. Read the rest here:
https://www.westword.com/news/colorado-court-hearing-recording-homeless-documentary-denver-11908681

Conor McCormick-Cavanagh is a staff writer at Westword, where he covers a range of beats, including local politics, immigration and homelessness. He previously worked as a journalist in Tunisia and loves to talk New York sports.

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Some Upset in Cyprus Over ‘satanic’ Eurovision Song Choice

By Menelaos Hadjicostis, AP | A man has been charged with uttering threats and causing a disturbance after barging onto the grounds of Cyprus’ public broadcaster to protest what he said was the country’s “blasphemous” entry into this year’s Eurovision song contest, police said Sunday.

Police told The Associated Press the man, who hasn’t been named, was released after being charged with four counts, including being verbally abusive.

Police said witnesses to Saturday’s incident told investigators the man verbally accosted employees outside the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation’s news department. He was apparently upset that the broadcaster had selected the song “El Diablo” (“The Devil”) performed by Greek singer Elena Tsagrinou to represent Cyprus, since he said it was as an affront to Christianity.

Amateur video of the man confronting CyBC staff showed him screaming at a number of employees in the yard, asking how they could justify supporting such a song.

The title of “El Diablo” as well as it’s lyrics — “I gave my heart to el diablo…because he tells me I’m his angel” — have touched a raw nerve with some in the east Mediterranean island nation, who consider it to be fraught with Satanic connotations.

According to the Cyprus News Agency, an association representing theologians who teach in high schools expressed their “disgust” over the song and called for it to be withdrawn because it “pledges life-long devotion and professes love for Satan.”
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We complain about “Freedom of Speech” – this article has another take on it:
https://apnews.com/article/eurovision-song-contest-cyprus-12791c8ad6069f777beb945b5aef823e

[Thank you to Alex Teitz, http://www.femmusic.com, for contributing this article.]

 

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