Azerbaijan and gay rights, what's the deal? And what did Samir do?

Time to be serious for a moment. We all know Azerbaijan has issues with neighbour Armenia and we still don't know if they will (be able to) participate in Eurovision 2012 in Baku. The other big issue is the gay rights. It's no secret Eurovision is also one of the world biggests annual gay meetings.These few lines sum it up nicely:

"During Eurovision, no-one will bother gay foreigners in Baku. People here don't mind, as long as it's not in their family. There are several openly gay celebrities in Baku who have money and bodyguards, and they are safe. But nothing will change [because of Eurovision] for the majority of gays, particularly in the provinces. This society will never accept them. Homosexuality here is seen as worse than prostitution. If a family decided to kill a gay relative, most people would approve. I have heard of many suicides of suspected homosexuals - I have never met an openly gay person around here."

And we thought there were issues in Belgrade and Moscow! Even if Eurovision will bring some visibility to the matter and Azeris may tolerate it all for a couple of weeks hardly anything will change in a long run. Here is some more to think about.

These days we have also had news that Samir Javadzade has stabbed by knive the brother of Elnur Hüseynov, Alvin. What really happened seems yet unclear and it may have been an accident but considering all the rumours about the duo that sung Day after day for Azerbaijan with their debut in Eurovision 2008 playing devil and angel I couldn't help but thinking about this when researching for this post. Maybe it has nothing to do with gay issues but ... some articles claim Samir as Elnur's companion.

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Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

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