Eurovision fans are not keen to see Turkey return to the contest. At the end of a meeting of his government, on Monday, May 20, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused this competition in a speech LGBT friendly corrupting “family values.”
“It has become impossible to find normal people at these events,” he said, calling the candidates “Trojan horses of social corruption.”
These comments reported by the Associated Press follow the victory of the Swiss representative at Eurovision 2024, on May 11 in Malmö, Sweden: Nemo, a 24-year-old non-binary artist, won this 68th edition of the contest with his song. The code. The artist performed in a skirt and waved the flag associated with her gender identity several times during the competition.
“We better understand that we made the right decision by withdrawing Turkey from this shameful competition 12 years ago,” continued Recep Tayyip Erdogan, considering that Eurovision tends to “neutralize gender.”
progressive showcase
Turkey joined Eurovision in 1975 and withdrew after the 2012 edition. The country won the competition once in 2003. “We have no plans to return to the competition,” Ibrahim Eren, former president of public television, stated in 2018. turkish He then attacked Conchita Wurst, female avatar of Austrian singer Thomas Neuwirth, who won the contest in 2014 combining a beard and evening dress:
“As a public broadcaster, we cannot broadcast live at nine at night, when the children are still awake, a person like this bearded and dressed Austrian, who does not believe in gender and declares himself a man . and a woman,” he reviled.
The Eurovision contest, created in 1956, claims its benevolence towards the LGBT community, often represented among its candidates. For example, in 1998, when transgender singer Dana International won the contest for Israel, or in 2003, when Russia sent the (fake) lesbian duo tATu to represent her.
Source: BFM TV
