Armenia’s Eurovision Song Contest entrant broke the controversial
Eurovision Song Contest flag rule in spectacular fashion during the
broadcast of the first Eurovision semi final. Waving a regional flag of
the hotly disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in the Green Room.
Armenia’s Iveta Mukuchyan caused a stir with her Nagorno-Karabakh flag (Picture: Aftonbladet)
Armenia will be sanctioned by the managing committee of the
Eurovision Song Contest in June and could face a financial penalty and
retrospective points deduction. They have been threatened with
disqualification and exclusion from the competition for a number of
years if there are any further breaches of Eurovision Rules.
The waving of the Nagorno-Karabakh regional flag caused shock and
anger in Azerbaijan and threatened the peaceful atmosphere of
delegations, press and fans attending the Contest. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan qualified from the Eurovision Song Contest first semi final.
Last week the Eurovision Song Contest organisers announced a rule
banning regional flags from being waved at the Eurovision Song Contest.
Whilst fans were expected to adhere to this, no-one thought that a
participant would breach the competition rule in such an obvious and
inflammatory way.
Nargorno-Karabakh is at the centre of an unresolved dispute between
Armenia and Azerbaijan. The region has an Armenian majority population
but lies within Azerbaijan’s borders. A war raged from 1988 until 1994
but a peace negotiation has never been achieved.
Eurovision organisers have been working hard to remove politics from
the Eurovision Song Contest and keep the focus of the show and the
competition firmly on music. Artists and delegations are expressly
forbidden from using their songs or their participation for political
means.
The rule made international headlines and became a topic of political
discussion in the UK because it meant the Welsh flag would be banned
from the arena. One half of the act representing the United Kingdom, Joe
Woolford is Welsh.
The rule was relaxed for regions where the singers are from, however Armenia’s singer is actually from Germany.
Azerbaijan’s
singer Samra was faced with questions about the incident at her press
conference after qualifying for the final (Picture: Aftonbladet)
A leaked memo, which included a list of flags that would be banned
and placed the Welsh and Scottish flags on a list that included terror
groups ISIS and Hamas, also caused outrage.
Armenian singer Iveta Mukuchayan poured oil on the fire in the
Winners’ Press Conference after qualifying from last night’s Eurovision
Semi Final. She said:
“I was expecting this question. You don’t have to forget that I am
representing my country in my heart, my thoughts my feelings and all my
emotions. My thoughts are with my motherland and what I want to spread
is peace on borders. I wrote this song because this was going on inside
of me”.
Azerbaijan were also participating in last night’s show and were
sitting further along the press conference table as Iveta delivered her
speech. You can see the looks on the Azeri faces here. The incident
demanded immediate action from the European Broadcasting Union,
organisers of the Eurovision Song Contest.
[Image 2]
A strongly worded statement was forthcoming this afternoon:
The EBU's statement over Armenia
The EBU and the [Eurovision Song Contest] Reference Group, the
governing body of the Eurovision Song Contest, strongly condemn the
brandishing of the Nagorno-Karabakh flag in the Green Room during the
live transmission of the first Semi Final on 10 May and considers the
flag’s appearance in the transmission harmful to the Eurovision Song
Contest brand.
The Reference Group has decided to sanction Armenian broadcaster,
AMPTV, in accordance with the Rules. The nature of the sanction will be
determined, at the latest, by the next Reference Group meeting in June.
We are acutely aware of the tense situation in the Nagorno-Karabakh
region, and the on-going tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan. We
consider the appearance of a flag of a highly disputed territory in the
live transmission a serious breach of Rule 1.2.2h of the 2016 Eurovision
Song Contest stating that “no messages promoting any organisation,
institution, political cause or other, company, brand, products or
services shall be allowed in the Shows”.
Furthermore, the EBU has imposed a zero-tolerance policy towards the
Armenian delegation with regards to breaching the Rules of the 2016
Eurovision Song Contest, in particular in relation to the aforementioned
incident.
The Reference Group wishes to point out that any further breach of
the Rules of the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest could lead to
disqualification from this year’s event or any successive editions.
In 2006, Icelandic entrant, the fictional character Silvia Night was
threatened with disqualification if she used ‘the F word’ in the live
performance of her song Congratulations.
In 2009, Georgia selected a song called We Don’t Wanna Put In, an
obvious thinly veiled attack on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
If came soon after the conflict between Georgia and Russia.
Eurovision organisers demanded that the lyrics should be changed or the
song replaced. Georgia withdrew from the competition.
Also in 2009, police in Azerbaijan questioned 42 nationals who were
found to have voted for Armenia at the Eurovision Song Contest. They
were ‘invited to explain why they had done so’. Both countries have used
the postcard videos introducing their songs to show contested land at
the Contest before and both have been warned against it. This is the
first time the flag of a disputed territory has been used at the
Contest.
Yesterday, the Russian delegation were in hot water after a professional juror broadcast seven minutes of Monday’s jury voting semi final.
The juror was sanctioned and her votes were disqualified. The broadcast
angered the Netherlands and Armenian delegations because their
performances were made available via the broadcast which then appeared
on YouTube.
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