Azerbaijan: Eurovision scandal continues

Despite attempts by the authorities in Baku to downplay the incident, news that the names and addresses of 43 citizens who voted for the Armenian entry in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest had been obtained by police in Azerbaijan continues to send out shock waves through the international media and the Internet.

Of course, Eurovision has been no stranger to such controversies, with all three countries in the region letting politics and ethnic rivalries spill out into proceedings.

The competition had already got off to a bad start in February when Georgia entered an entry mocking the Russian prime minister, former President Putin, but then Armenia and Azerbaijan soon took the level of animosity to even greater heights with actions that bordered on the infantile. This might be reason enough for many to consider Eurovision as more absurd than it already is, but when the two countries remain in a state of war, even a simple and otherwise mundane song contest takes on a frightening new dimension.

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