by RAHELEH BEHZADI
On May 22-26, 2012, the Eurovision song contest will be held in Baku, following Azerbaijan’s victory in the 2011 contest. Suggestions by gay rights activists that a gay pride parade will be held in Baku during the contest have disturbed the Islamic government of Iran. Over the last weeks, several Friday prayer preachers, official Iranian broadcasts and conservative newspapers have reflected the objections of the Iranian government, stating that the competition is “immoral” and “anti Islamic.” Iran’s present behavior stands in stark contrast to its indifference toward the participation of Muslim countries in previous Eurovision song contests. Also, gay pride parades have been organized in Turkey since 2003 without Iranian objections.
BACKGROUND: Azerbaijan joined the Eurovision Song Contest in 2008 and took third place after Iceland in 2009. After winning the 2011 Eurovision in Germany, it became the host of the 2012 contest. One part of the Eurovision contest is the gay pride parade, a celebration/ demonstration for legal rights such as same-sex marriage and countering anti–LGBT violence around the world. Although Azerbaijan is a Muslim country, its parliament decriminalized homosexual acts between male adults in 2000.
In January 2012, an official website about global gay nightlife, Nighttours, suggested that a gay pride parade should be organized in Baku during the lead-up to Eurovision, as was the case during the previous contest in Düsseldorf. The website removed its suggestion after a few days, but Iranian officials and some Azerbaijani websites voiced heavy criticism against the Azerbaijani government.
Bidari-e-Islami, a news Agency in Azerbaijan, reported that most people in Azerbaijan are not satisfied with Eurovision being held in Baku. Some religious people who are protesting the Eurovision contest have been arrested and accused of crimes such as drug abuse and possession of weapons. Islam Times published an analytic article about the Eurovision and gay pride parade in Baku. The paper stated that the victory of Azerbaijan in the 2011 contest was a conspiracy planned by Israel, which supposedly forced Azerbaijan to host of the 2012 contest and aims to separate Azerbaijan from the Islamic world. Signs that the government of Azerbaijan complies include, according to the paper, the destruction of mosques and bans of headscarves in schools. These websites and news agencies claim that they are Azerbaijani and are located in Azerbaijan, but have published all news and analysis in the Persian language.
The Islamic government of Iran has demonstrated its opposition to Eurovision and the supposed gay pride parade in various ways. First, it prohibited Iranians from buying Eurovision tickets through a filtering system and blocked the Eurovision website. Second, the radical Ansar-Hizbullah group and Islamic associations of universities in Tabriz city, which are directly supported by the Supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sent an open letter to the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Iran, threatening to close the Azerbaijani consulate in Tabriz if the parade takes place. Ayatollah Mohsen Mojdahed Shabestari, preachers of the Friday prayers and representatives of Iran’s supreme leader in Tabriz, criticized the Azerbaijani government, stating that the majority of the Azerbaijani population is Shi’a Muslim and that the prospect of a gay pride parade in a Muslim country harms the community of Muslims.
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