The Eurovision 2012 is over and most everyone has left the city and Azerbaijan, the winner Loreen has just arrived home, Nina Zilli just tweeted she had a long sleep and woke up at 8pm, Tooji's back home, too....
But did you know it didn't go all so well for a Norwegian delegation, when one of them ended beaten up, threatened, and amused causing Norway almost to pull out from the contest.
Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) almost pulled Tooji out of the competition
before it even started on Saturday, to protest the treatment that an NRK
team received upon departure from Baku. NRK reported that they were
detained at the airport, threatened and abused by Azerbaijani police,
apparently because the Azerbaijani authorities were provoked by the
content of material broadcast by the team, which included a
Norwegian-Iranian comedian who works for NRK’s channel P3.“But we chose to go ahead (with Tooji’s performance),” said NRK’s program director, Per Arne Kalbakk. “Pulling Tooji out of Eurovision would have caused bigger
problems for the arrangers, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), and
the artists. We decided it would have been the wrong reaction.”
With statements like “Don’t be fooled by these glass and gold buildings” in Baku and references to local attitudes against homosexuality, officials in Azerbaijan and local media reportedly
found the NRK P3 team’s programs offensive and an insult to their
country. When the NRK team was leaving the country, they were stopped by
police at the airport security checkpoint. “We don’t know whether this was a real police action or whether this
was a group of police who decided to act like thugs,” Halvorsen told
NRK’s own website. “But for Amir, it was an extremely uncomfortable
experience. He was taken to a hearing room, threatened and forced to
remove his clothes.” Asgharnejad told NRK’s late-night national newscast
that he also was harassed and forced to kick an Iranian flag on the
ground, even though he resisted because he found that an offensive act.
He said the police filmed their harassment of him. All four team members were on assignment for NRK and accredited to
cover Eurovision. EBU had secured guarantees from the authorities in
Azerbaijan, known for harassing their own journalists, that all
journalists would be well-treated and be allowed to work freely.
Read the whole story here. There are rumors EBU would take action and Azerbaijan might risk expulsion of the contest and maybe even EBU itself. I would like to remind you about the Belgian member of delegation who was robbed and beaten by a taxist on early days in Baku and had to fly home and be replaced by someone else, too. What else will we still learn...?
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