Boycotting Baku?

This year’s version of the Eurovision Song Contest is scheduled to kick off next week in the Azerbaijani capital city of Baku. In advance of this event, very serious questions have been raised about how the event is being organized and about the country in which it is being held.

First of all, to make room for the fancy new concert hall that Baku is building for the contest, a number of historic buildings were razed, including many in which people were actually living. According to some reports, several thousand people lost their homes. This is bad enough, but the razing happened in a country which is not exactly known for achievements in the area of human rights, and that gives good reason to ask whether it is appropriate to organize a festive musical event there.

For five years, ending just a few weeks ago, the Azerbaijani regime banned all opposition meetings. The BBC recently reported about a musician who was arrested for “insulting the president” (an “offense” which all dictatorships have in common) and tortured in prison. The globally recognized human rights organization Human Rights Watch is absolutely scathing about Azerbaijan’s record in this area. Go to its homepage (www.hrw.org), and your hair will curl. “Torture and ill treatment in police custody continue with impunity” – that’s just one statement on the homepage.
Armenia has already said that it is not sending anyone to Eurovision this year. That is logical; Armenia and Azerbaijan have never been exactly friendly. But what should other countries do?

There will be those who say that culture should not be a reason for a boycott. Eurovision itself claims to be entirely apolitical despite the fact that distinctly political songs have been performed in the past by Ukrainians, Israelis and Georgians, and in 1974 the Portuguese song was used as a signal on the radio to launch a revolution against the regime. In general terms, however, Eurovision is a carnival-like event which does not have anything to do with politics as such. Latvia’s representative, Annmary, has already departed for Baku, as have singers from other countries.

And yet I believe that Annmary should be brought back home. Azerbaijan does not deserve the international spotlight for a cultural event. The situation this year is all the more ironic given that Western Europeans have been all about boycotting the European Football Championship in Ukraine because of the maltreatment by the regime in Kiev of former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko. That is one woman, albeit a very visible one. Azerbaijan tramples on the human rights of far, far more than just one person. Media freedoms are under grave danger. Political prisoners are not uncommon. Non-governmental organizations which the regime sees as threatening have been attacked by mobs. How does the regime respond to all of this? Hold on to your hats, but this is what a representative of the government told the BBC: “Even among those whose homes have been demolished and among journalists, 99 percent are satisfied, and only 1 percent are unhappy.” How unbelievably ridiculous can you get?

I believed that countries in which human rights are of importance should have boycotted the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and was disappointed that Latvia’s then president, Valdis Zatlers, went to them (and stayed there after Russia invaded Georgia, claiming poor transport links – something that was even worse). I believe that now that Russia has occupied a part of Georgia, just like the Soviet Union once occupied all of Latvia, the right to organize the 2014 Winter Olympics at Sochi should be withdrawn. And I believe that Latvia and all of the civilized section of Europe should boycott the Eurovision Song Contest in Baku.

Because I believe, you see, that human rights are a universal and indivisible principle. Yes, they immediately get tossed out the window as soon as political and, particularly, economic interests come into play. That is why many businesspeople and politicians in Latvia are opposed to European sanctions against the brutal regime in Belarus. That is also why, when that same Valdis Zatlers visited Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, he said in advance that he would not be talking about the grotesque human rights violations which occurred there. But there is absolutely no excuse for coddling countries in which human rights are violated systematically and thoroughly. Such grotesqueness cannot be hidden in this day and age of CNN and Twitter and memory sticks and such, but that hasn’t stopped regimes such as the one in Baku from trampling all over human rights, and that is why a fierce reaction is, at the end of the day, very much necessary. Annmary should come home. The Eurovision Song Contest’s organizers should be ashamed of themselves. And a boycott is not just logical, but also mandatory.

Karlis Streips is an American-Latvian journalist who has done extensive radio,  television and print work.
He has lived in Latvia since 1989.