Denis: Sting’s sour note

Feb 26 2010 By Denis Kilcommons

STING, it has been reported, was paid up to £2 million to play a concert for Gulnara Karimova, the daughter and anointed heir of Uzbekistan dictator Islam Karimov.

This happened in October but has just come to light and has forced Sting to make a statement defending his action.

Among the atrocities committed by the barbarous Karimov is boiling his enemies alive and conscripting armies of children for slave labour.

But hey, a fee of up to £2 million might make even the most committed world citizen have second thoughts.

"I am well aware of the Uzbek president’s appalling reputation in the field of human rights as well as the environment," said Sting.

"I made the decision to play there in spite of that.

"I have come to believe that cultural boycotts are not only pointless gestures, they are counter-productive, where proscribed states are further robbed of the open commerce of ideas and art and as a result become even more closed, paranoid and insular."