STOCKHOLM (AP) – You can croon about unrequited love, dance with unbridled passion or dress up in drag. Just keep politics out of it.
Organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest say the annual kitsch-fest, which is watched by almost 200 million people in dozens of countries, is about having a good time, not making political statements. Yet it didn’t take long for someone to break the no-politics rule at this year’s competition in Stockholm.
At Tuesday’s semifinal, the first of two leading up the grand final on Saturday, Armenian singer Iveta Mukuchyan waved the flag of Nagorno-Karabach, a separatist region that is officially part of Azerbaijan but currently under the control of local ethnic Armenian forces.
“I just want peace on our borders,” Mukuchyan said at a news conference after the show.
While an Azerbaijani journalist went on at length about how inappropriate the gesture was, the country’s contestant, Samra Rahimli, avoided the topic.