A Song Contest Becomes a Hot Spot in Feud Between Countries

The simmering conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has entered a new theater: the Eurovision Song Contest. The talent show, in which television audiences help select a winner from among dozens of European national champions, is supposed to be apolitical. Voters are barred from supporting their country’s representatives in the competition, which is organized by the European Broadcasting Union, a group of public television companies. But some Azerbaijanis who took impartiality to impressive lengths, voting for the Armenian entry in the 2009 final in May, reportedly were called in to the Azerbaijani National Security Ministry. “They were trying to put psychological pressure on me, saying things like, ‘You have no sense of ethnic pride; how come you voted for Armenia?”’ one of them, Rovshan Nasirli, told Radio Free Europe. “They made me write out an explanation, and then they let me go.”

Previously, the Armenians had raised tensions by slipping images of a memorial in Nagorno-Karabakh, the enclave at the center of the dispute between the countries, into the video presentation that introduced their representative in a preliminary round. Ictimai, the Azerbaijani public television company, said last week that it had been assured that “no one was invited to or interrogated at the Ministry of National Security with regard to the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest.”
“Therefore, all reports on this issue in the media are groundless and continuing them does not follow any logic,” Ictimai said in a statement. But the European Broadcasting Union said Friday that it would examine the matter further at a meeting in September in Oslo. “Any breach of privacy regarding voting, or interrogation of individuals, is totally unacceptable,” Jean Réveillon, director general of the broadcasting union, said in a statement.
By ERIC PFANNER
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/arts/television/31iht-eurovision.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss