Saadeh is not one of the Swedish participants this year, but he played the opening role at the beginning of the first semi-final.

The organiser, the European Broadcasting Union, is not happy about the event, as the display of Palestinian flags or other symbols is prohibited: “It is a live programme. Everyone who performs the program is aware of the rules and we are sorry that Eric Saadeh has chosen to do so.”

The organization also did not publish the Swedish performance on its channels. This makes it the only performance from last night not shared there.

Here you can see animations of the performance:

The organization managed to prevent Irish participant Bambi Thug from making a political statement on stage. The artist had written a message on her body. He wrote in the Irish Ogham alphabet: “Ceasefire” and “Freedom for Palestine.” It had to be removed.

Justice and peace

“It was very important to me because I am for justice and peace,” Thug said in a press conference after the first semi-final match. “Unfortunately, I had to change the message today based on EBU guidance to simply ‘coronate the witch’.”

Al-Saffah qualified for the final on Saturday.

There is a lot of noise in this edition about political statements due to the war in Gaza between Hamas and Israel. Earlier, a group of Dutch people called on Dutch participant Joost Klein to boycott the festival. The Israeli song had to be changed because its lyrics contain some political messages.