EBU PROVES AZERBAIJAN GUILTY OVER EUROVISION SONG CONTEST INFRINGEMENTS

Panorama.am
18:09 09/12/2009

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has concluded the investigation
of the scandal over the violation of "Eurovision" song contest rules
by Azerbaijan and officially announced the latter guilty.

Panorama.am recalls that Azerbaijan rejected the fact that during
sms voting of "Eurovision 2009" live contest, the number to vote for
Armenia was blocked in Azerbaijan.

Naturally, the Armenian party collected all the facts and evidence
over the violation and Azerbaijan couldn’t resist. Azerbaijan’s
traditional methods of oil dollars and threats didn’t work.

The head of the Azerbaijani delegation to the contest Adil Kerimli had
to confess: "EBU announced that Azerbaijani TV didn’t show sms-numbers
for Armenia." He also reaffirmed that Azerbaijan was fined over the
infringement.

Having followed the whole process and represented the Armenian party
interests, the Adviser to the Executive Director of the Public TV
Company of Armenia Diana Mnatsakanyan clarified the situation in an
interview with Panorama.am.

"The fine of 2700 euros was not confirmed by the EBU, consequently,
we have no basis to trust any of the Azerbaijani sources. Kerimli
explained the blocking of the sms-number had occurred for "technical
reasons". To me, everyone can see why "technical" problems arose
just with Armenia’s voting number. With other countries no similar
problems ever occur in Azerbaijan," Diana Mnatsakanyan said.

"We are against bringing cultural issues into political field, and
we have informed the EBU about this," she said.

Thus, the EBU put an end to a story which caused a wide public
resonance among the "Eurovision" song contest fans. The fine has
been paid (the sum has not been revealed yet, though, taking into
consideration the "Eurovision" song contest practice, we may assume it
is worth some ten thousands of euros). Azerbaijan has been cautioned
it will get disqualified in case this happens again in the future,
and Azerbaijan’s all attempts to undertake any provocative actions
against Armenia will be harshly punished.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress