AZERBAIJAN ACCUSED OF NIXING ARMENIA VOTE IN EUROVISION

MosNews
May 18 2009
Russia

Armenian Public Television has submitted a complaint to the
organizational committee of the Eurovision 2009 song contest accusing
Azeri contest officials of gross violation of the contest rules,
RIA Novosti news agency reports.

The Azeris were virtually deprived of the possibility to vote
for Armenia’s song in the final tournament, Armenian website
PanARMENIAN.Net reports.

According to a group of Azeri Internet users, during broadcasting
of the Eurovision contest, the part of the screen with the phone
number to call and vote for the song of the Armenian performers was
hidden. The voting results showed that Azerbajan has not given Anush
and Inga Arshakian a single point, PanARMENIAN.Net points out.

Anush and Inga Arshakian, who represented Armenia at the Eurovision
international contest, are reported to have taken tenth place.

It is worth mentioning that Armenia gave 1 point to the song of the
Azeri participants, Aysel Teimuradze and Arash, who scored 207 points
and took third place.

The Azeris’ biased attitude towards their Armenian counterparts
was also noticeable during the preparation for the song
contest. PanArmenian.net reports that Azerbaijan urged the Eurovision
2009 organizational committee to remove the We and Our Mountains
monument in Nagorno Karabakh from the video representing Armenia.

At the same time, the showing of the Iranian Maqbaratoshoara (mausoleum
of poets in Tebriz) in the video representing the Azeri contestants
was not considered inappropriate by the Azeri participants.