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Azerbaijanis face Eurovision probe

Three months after this year's Eurovision Song Contest, an unconfirmed number of Azerbaijanis who voted for the Armenian entry have been brought in for questioning by the police. One man said he was accused of being unpatriotic and a "potential security threat." Authorities said people were simply invited to explain their voting choices.
Azerbaijan and Armenia have a history of strained relations, largely over territorial claims that remain unresolved. Last November, leaders of the neighboring countries pledged to find a political solution to the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, over which the two fought in the 1990s. Little progress, however, seems to have been made since.
Broadcast live every May since its inaugural telecast in 1956, Eurovision is today a cultural institution, and the epitome of Kunderian kitsch. Despite the organizers' aspirations for an apolitical competition, historic undercurrents inevitably surface on screen. Habitual incidences of bloc voting occur, and in March Georgia's entry "We Don't Wanna Put In" was banned for its thinly-veiled reference to the Russian prime minister.
In Azerbaijan, 43 people are believed to have voted for Armenia's entry "Jan Jan," pictured above.
Oleg Nikishin/Epsilon/Getty Images













Re: Azerbaijanis face Eurovision probe
The Eurovision Song Contest has been broadcast every year since its inauguration in 1956, and is one of the longest-running television programmers in the world. It is also one of the most-watched non-sporting events in the world, with audience figures having been quoted in recent years as anything between 100 million and 600 million internationally. It has been broadcast around the globe — beyond Europe — to such countries as Australia, Canada, Egypt, Jordan, Hong Kong, India, Korea, New Zealand and the USA; even though these countries do not participate. Since the year 2000, the Contest has also been broadcast over the Internet. The Contest is historically known for being mainly a bastion of formulaic, orchestrated pop music. However it has featured a vast, diverse array of songs, including such musical genres as Arab, Balkan, Dance, Folk, Israeli, Greek, Latin, Metal, Nordic, Pop-rap, Rock, and Turkish. Over the years, the Song Contest has grown from a mere television experiment into an international institution of mammoth proportions. Most countries in Europe have taken part at least once during the Contest's history, and such is the magnitude and scale of the Contest that the word "Eurovision" is one of the few household names to be recognized across an entire continent. This page main goal is to bring to you the videos of all the winning entries since the first one in 1956 when the contest was mainly a radio program. The quality of the first videos is very poor as you might expect, but they are true gems and worth watching to fully understand all the changes the contest has gone through. I would surely donate my cash advances for those won this contest, because this really matters.
All right, all right... Who
All right, all right... Who cares about freedom or justice after all? Aren't the Azeris oil suppliers to Chevron, Total and BP?
By the way, wouldn't it be more constructive to notice the way the Obama administration is putting on "sales" the Armenian Genocide issue for the Turks help in Iraq, Iran and Syria?