Eurovision 'to allow Palestine and Pride flags after ban backlash'
DR, also known as the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, obtained this year's official policy regarding national and political emblems.
The Danish site reported that the new EBU policy states that 'political messages should be avoided' – but notes host country Switzerland's 'high value on freedom of expression'.
READ MORE: Eurovision viewers report use of 'anti-booing' technology during Israel act
As a result, spectators are seemingly permitted to bring all flags into the St Jakobshalle arena – including that of Palestine, which was notably banned from the 2024 contest.
Only items displaying symbols that violate Swiss law, such as featuring discriminatory and racist content or promoting known terrorism organisations, will be prohibited.
The official policy was that only rainbow pride flags and those of competing countries – including Israel – were permitted for spectators last year, with organisers claiming 'clothes, items or posters that can be used as instruments to be shown on television screens' featuring pro-Palestinian symbolism would also be subject to a potential ban.
Whilst guidelines for fans have relaxed some for 2025, performers will face harsher restrictions.
Under the new policy, artists are reportedly only permitted to use the official flag of the country they are representing during Eurovision-related events, which will be provided to them by Swiss broadcaster SRG SSR.
Artists have also received a blanket ban from displaying 'symbols of solidarity,' meaning performers will not be allowed to hold flags or banners representing Ukraine or Palestine, despite looser restrictions on audience members.
Bosses say this is to retain the 'political neutrality' of Eurovision after last year's winner Nemo smuggled the non-binary flag on stage and Irish contestant Bambi Thug wore acrylic nails painted to represent the colours of Palestine.
The contest faced calls for a boycott over their decision to allow Israel to compete amidst the ongoing atrocities being committed against Palestinians, meanwhile Russia was outlawed in 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine.
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The Independent
a few seconds ago
- The Independent
House Democrats launch investigation into Paramount merger and ‘bribe' to Trump
The ranking members of the House Judiciary and Energy and Commerce committees are launching an investigation into Skydance's $8 billion merger with Paramount and whether the $16 million settlemen t to Donald Trump constituted a 'bribe,' the committees announced on Thursday. The Hill first reported on the launch of the congressional probe and a letter sent to Paramount leadership, which The Independent has also reviewed. In the letter sent to new Paramount CEO David Ellison on Wednesday night, E&C ranking member Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. and Rep. Jamie Raskin, Judiciary's top Democrat, called on Paramount leadership to provide documents and correspondence related to the deal and its approval process with the Trump administration. The merger, which was approved late last month by the FCC and officially closed on August 7, came after a politically strained and fraught process that included the previous Paramount leadership paying Trump to settle a lawsuit over a 60 Minutes interview that CBS News' own lawyers said was 'without merit.' Additionally, after the settlement was announced, the president claimed that he had reached a 'side deal' with Ellison to air up to $20 million worth of pro-Trump advertisements and programming on CBS once Skydance took over the company. While the previous Paramount leadership denied any knowledge of any secret agreement, Ellison has remained mum about the matter. Days before the merger was approved by Trump's handpicked FCC chief Brendan Carr, Skydance agreed to install an ombudsman for two years to conduct a 'comprehensive review' of CBS News and review 'complaints of bias.' The company also agreed to eliminate all diversity hiring practices. On top of that, Paramount announced just before the administration approved the merger that it was canceling the long-running late show hosted by outspoken Trump critic Stephen Colbert, even though it was the top-rated program in late-night. Trump and Carr immediately celebrated the news of Colbert's cancellation. Paramount, meanwhile, has insisted the move was purely for financial reasons, while company sources claimed the show lost $40 million a year. 'In the days and weeks leading up to government approval of the deal, Paramount also agreed to pay $16 million to settle President Trump's meritless lawsuit related to benign edits of an episode of '60 Minutes'—a standard editorial practice—which the FCC also investigated without any legitimate regulatory basis,' the letter to Ellison read. 'The settlement raises significant concerns that Donald Trump demanded and Paramount paid an illegal bribe—a $16 million payment to the President in exchange for merger approval from the FCC.' Carr spent months during the approval process slamming CBS News' coverage of Trump, accusing it of anti-conservative bias while also reviewing complaints over alleged 'news distortion' at the network, specifically over the 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. Raskin and Pallone aren't the only ones who have accused Paramount of bribing the president to push through the merger process. While the company – then led by chief shareholder Shari Redstone – was in mediation over the lawsuit, several Democratic senators warned the company that any settlement with Trump could be seen as a violation of anti-bribery statutes. 'Paramount also canceled the highly popular 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,' which President Trump openly dislikes, shortly after Mr. Colbert's on-air criticism of Paramount's settlement as a 'big fat bribe,'' Raskin and Pallone stated. 'As a condition of the merger, Skydance also agreed to make changes to CBS and its editorial practices that align with the Trump Administration's political agenda, including a commitment to eliminate 'perceived bias' in its reporting, the hiring of an ombudsman to police the news organization's editorial choices, and the dismantling of any initiatives aimed at promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion.' The congressmen also raised questions about the influence the new Paramount chief's father had on the process. Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, is a close ally of the president's and has invested heavily in his son's venture. 'And within days of your June 7 meeting, President Trump endorsed your bid to purchase Paramount,' the lawmakers wrote Ellison. 'Moreover, your father, Larry Ellison, who contributed up to $6 billion toward your purchase of Paramount, reportedly met privately with President Trump multiple times in recent months. Notably, none of these meetings were memorialized with filings in the FCC's docket on this transaction, prompting objections from other parties in the record.' Referencing the supposed 'side deal' with the president, the congressmen brought up Trump's public boast that he anticipated that the 'new Owners' would give him $20 million of PSAs and similar programming. 'This offer was necessarily contingent on the FCC approving the deal and does not appear to present any legitimate value to the public, only to President Trump,' Pallone and Raskin stated. 'Therefore, this appears to be an offer of payment and benefits to a government official designed to achieve a specific outcome from the government — in other words, a bribe.' Also noting that several CBS newsroom leaders parted ways with the network over Paramount's settlement negotiations with Trump, the two Democrats said that the combination of all of these actions could 'run afoul of federal and state anti-bribery statutes' while demanding detailed answers surrounding the merger approval process. 'Two wrongs do not make a right—illegitimate demands from the FCC or the Administration do not absolve your company from wrongdoing,' the lawmakers wrote to David Ellison. 'If Skydance offered a side deal of up to $20 million worth of advertisement or programming to President Trump in order to receive regulatory approval for the merger with Paramount, these actions would run afoul of federal and state anti-bribery statutes.' They continued: 'Similarly, if Paramount forced out CBS's longtime leaders, spent $16 million to settle a sham lawsuit with President Trump, or cancelled a highly popular comedy show that President Trump dislikes in order to curry favor with the Administration and to receive regulatory approval for the merger with Skydance, these actions would likely further embolden President Trump to use lawsuits and regulatory authority to attack media organizations that he finds objectionable in order to silence them.'
The Guardian
a minute ago
- The Guardian
How the Bendigo writers' festival's code of conduct caused a walkout and claims of censorship
Last Wednesday, just two days before opening, Bendigo writers' festival sent its lineup of more than 90 participants an email that would end up derailing the three-day event. The email contained a code of conduct, including directions to 'avoid language or topics that could be considered inflammatory, divisive, or disrespectful'. Speakers on panels presented by festival sponsor La Trobe University were also required to comply with La Trobe's anti-racism plan, including the contentious definition of antisemitism adopted by Universities Australia in February. The response was swift. By Thursday evening, high-profile participants including the Palestinian Australian author and academic Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah and the Stella prize-winning First Nations poet Dr Evelyn Araluen had withdrawn from the festival, citing censorship concerns. And by Friday afternoon, about 30 participants had pulled out, including high-profile authors such as the La Trobe University academic Prof Clare Wright, Paul Daley, Jock Serong, Thomas Mayo and Jess Hill, forcing the cancellation of the opening night address. On Monday, BWF confirmed to Guardian Australia that 53 participants had withdrawn, resulting in 22 sessions – a third of the program – being cancelled, including the closing ceremony on Sunday night. The boycott and controversy are the latest in a string of high-profile tussles over freedom of expression involving pro-Palestine artists, including the sacking (and reinstatement) of Lebanese Australian artist Khaled Sabsabi as Australia's representative to the Venice Biennale, and the stripping of a government-funded writing fellowship from the First Nations author K A Ren Wyld. Writers' festivals have become fraught events, but never before has a backlash been so swift or produced such debilitating results as in Bendigo. On Monday, the festival said it was still tallying the cost of refunding tickets – but the reputational damage had already been deeply felt. Its founding director, Rosemary Sorensen, accused the festival of exercising an 'authoritarian abuse of power'; Noongar author Claire G Coleman called the code of conduct 'condescending and insulting'; and Abdel-Fattah, sharing her withdrawal letter on Instagram, wrote: 'At a time when journalists are being permanently silenced by Israel's genocidal forces, it is incomprehensible that a writers' festival should also seek to silence Palestinian voices.' Samuel Cairnduff, a lecturer in culture and communication at the University of Melbourne, described the mass withdrawal as 'a vote of no confidence in institutional leadership that has forgotten why it exists'. Abdel-Fattah had been scheduled to appear on a La Trobe-sponsored panel titled On Reckonings, speaking about her new novel Discipline, which reflects on the silencing of Palestinians in academia and the media. 'How ironic that they would invite me, knowing what my book is about, on a panel called 'reckonings', where I'm going to be discussing a book on silencing Palestinians – and then attempt to silence me,' she told Guardian Australia. Abdel-Fattah said her withdrawal was more than a matter of principle. After receiving the code of conduct, she believed participating in the BWF 'would have resulted … in some kind of media coverage demonising me'. She believes this is part of a larger move to silence Palestinian voices. '[For] most institutions and organisations, it becomes a cost-benefit risk analysis: I become a Palestinian who is dealt with in terms of risk. I'm a risk management crisis.' A festival spokesperson said: 'The City [of Greater Bendigo which runs the festival] and La Trobe University, as the Festival's Presenting Partner, agreed to issue a one-page Code of Conduct to emphasise the importance of safety and wellbeing for all participants.' The code of conduct 'was never intended to silence anyone, but rather to allow discussions to happen while ensuring the safe participation and inclusion of everyone,' the spokesperson said. BWF did not respond directly to Guardian Australia's questions about whether the code of conduct was issued at the request of La Trobe, instead directing questions to the university. Nor did BWF respond to a question about why the code was sent just two days before the festival opened. A spokesperson for the university said: 'La Trobe will always take seriously any concerns raised about community safety and inclusion – including cultural safety – and we welcome feedback on our public events and engagement.' On Monday, it was revealed that the Australian Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism, or 5A, group wrote to La Trobe and BWF in July, urging them to 'implement immediate measures' concerning the inclusion of Abdel-Fattah; and characterising her as a person who 'perpetually dehumanises people who hold Zionist views'. It's not clear whether the letter played any part in the decision to issue the code of conduct, and La Trobe and BWF refused to comment on the matter. The timing of the email announcing the code has been criticised as well as its content. 'When you consider how long ago I was invited to the festival, [this] was an unacceptably short time to consider such a change,' Coleman said in her letter to the festival, shared on Instagram. Cairnduff wrote that the festival's last-minute approach is part of a broader trend of late-stage risk mitigation – 'a governance approach that frequently generates greater controversy than it prevents because it fundamentally alters the terms of engagement after commitments have been made'. Louise Adler, the director of Adelaide Writers' Week, which has faced criticism and withdrawal of sponsorship over its programming of Palestinian and pro-Palestine authors, says the BWF 'debacle' is 'symptomatic of the current environment' in the arts. Other high profile controversies included actors wearing keffiyehs at a Sydney Theatre Company curtain call; pianist Jayson Gillham suing the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for cancelling one of his concerts, after he made a statement criticising Israel's targeting of journalists in Gaza; and the National Gallery of Australia covering up two Palestinian flags in a textile work by the Aotearoa New Zealand collective SaVĀge K'lub. 'We have witnessed a succession of pre-emptive buckles by arts managers second-guessing risk-averse boards who collectively (with management) are concerned about the reputational damage, the withdrawal of desperately needed sponsorship, and the relentless media campaigns that lobby groups can and do orchestrate with the help of News Ltd,' Adler says. 'The arts community needs boards that have courage and [who] understand their role, the importance of curatorial independence and that the artists who choose to work with these organisations are entitled to full-throated and unwavering support.' Adler says the Adelaide writers' festival's code of conduct is limited to 'compliance with Australian laws regarding racial discrimination, vilification, hate speech and incitement to violence'. 'During my tenure there has not been a single incident requiring intervention,' she says. Denis Muller, a senior research fellow with the University of Melbourne's Centre for Advancing Journalism, describes the festival's code of conduct as 'extremely vague and oppressive', one that 'no self-respecting journalist or writer is going to adhere to'. 'The body politic in Australia is in the process of recalibrating the whole idea of where moral authority rests in the Middle East. This is a period of transition, and it's extremely tense,' he says. In a previous piece for the Conversation, Muller wrote about the 'fraught position' writers' festivals are now in: 'They navigate the frontier between social media's echo chambers of outrage and the traditional public square's conventions, where restraint, reason and tolerance in the face of opposing views are the basis for civilised debate.' Cairnduff says there are lessons for institutions in how they communicate with and consult artists – but argues a more fundamental reckoning needs to occur. 'Arts organisations should be questioning what kinds of restrictions that they – as platforms for creative people – should be imposing,' he says. 'The idea of arts and cultural expression is about freedom of expression and engaging in some of those more challenging and difficult areas of a broader social discourse … restricting speech and freedom of expression – that's exactly the antithesis of what a cultural organisation in contemporary Australian society should be doing.' On the opening night of Adelaide writers' week in 2023, as the festival faced criticism over the inclusion of a Palestinian speaker and a Palestinian-American speaker, the South Australian premier, Peter Malinauskas, admitted he had been under immense pressure to axe its funding – had even considered it – but decided it would set a dangerous precedent if a government determined who was allowed to speak. 'If I was to unilaterally defund writers' week … what path does that take us down?' he said. 'It's a path to a future where politicians decide what is culturally appropriate … a path, in fact, that leads us into the territory of Putin's Russia.' Adler told the Guardian at the time: 'These matters are complex. None of this is simple. 'People are free to deeply object. They don't have to come. Or come, and you don't need to agree with what people think. But people listened. These steadfast Adelaide audiences came out in their thousands and listened with courtesy and respect for the conversation. It should be something that lifts the spirits of all of us.'
Rhyl Journal
31 minutes ago
- Rhyl Journal
Netanyahu pushes forward with Gaza City operation despite opposition
The Israeli military began calling medical officials and international organisations in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday to encourage them to evacuate the area ahead of the expanded operation. It comes the day after the military announced the call-up of 60,000 reservists and the extension of 20,000 reservists currently serving to support the expanded operation. The Israeli prime minister is expected to give his final approval for the operation during a security cabinet meeting on Thursday night, according to an official. It comes as at least 36 Palestinians were killed in strikes in central and southern Gaza on Thursday, according to local hospitals, and people protested in Israel and Gaza. Although Israel has targeted and killed much of Hamas's senior leadership, parts are actively regrouping and carrying out attacks, including launching rockets towards Israel, the official said. Israeli troops are already operating in the city's Zeitoun neighbourhood and in Jabaliya, a refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, to prepare for the expanded operation which could begin within days. The developments came during heightened international condemnation of Israel's restrictions on food and medicine reaching Gaza and fears that many Palestinians will be forced to flee. United Nations chief Antonio Guterres repeated his call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Thursday, telling a news conference: 'I must reiterate that it is vital to reach immediately a ceasefire in Gaza, and the unconditional release of all hostages to avoid the massive death and destruction that a military operation against Gaza City would inevitably cause.' People protested against the expansion of the war in Israel and Gaza on Thursday. In Gaza City, hundreds of people gathered, waving flags and posters among destroyed buildings, rubble and tents for the displaced in a rare show of opposition to the war and forced migration. 'We have lost more than 10% of our residents, 85% of our buildings and infrastructure and much of our cultural and historic heritage,' said Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network. 'All of Gaza is threatened with destruction.' In Israel, families of some of the 50 hostages still being held in Gaza gathered in Tel Aviv to condemn the expanded operation. Israel believes around 20 hostages are still alive. 'Forty-two hostages were kidnapped alive and murdered in captivity due to military pressure and delay in signing a deal,' said Dalia Cusnir, whose brother-in-law, Eitan Horn, is still being held captive. Mr Horn's brother Iair was released during the last ceasefire. 'Enough to sacrifice the hostages. Enough to sacrifice the soldiers, both regular and reservists. Enough to sacrifice the evacuees. Enough to sacrifice the younger generation in the country,' said Bar Goddard, the daughter of Meni Goddard, whose body is being held by Hamas. Additional protests are planned for Thursday night in Tel Aviv. At least 36 people were killed on Thursday in Gaza and the death toll from strikes on Wednesday in northern Gaza rose by another 39, Shifa Hospital reported. Air strikes killed 19 people in central Gaza, including five who were attempting to get aid and eight sheltering at schools for displaced people, according to Al Awda Hospital. Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza said at least nine people were killed attempting to access aid and eight in an air strike near Khan Younis. In the central city of Deir-al Balah, air strikes destroyed at least 100 tents of people displaced by the fighting, according to Al Aqsa Hospital. Witnesses said smoke rose from the targeted area and fires spread quickly through the makeshift shelters. Civil defence teams rushed to the site, working to extinguish the flames. Families, many of them with children, were left sifting through the ashes of what little they had managed to bring with them during earlier evacuations. Mohammad Kahlout, displaced from northern Gaza, said: 'We came to the safe zone, which they call safe. (We were given) only five minutes to gather our belongings, and then they bombed the camp. 'We are civilians, not terrorists. What is our fault, and what is the fault of our children, to be displaced again? This is a camp for civilians, refugees. There is no resistance or anyone.' The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said on Thursday that the death toll from the Israel-Hamas war has reached 62,192. Two more people have died from starvation and malnutrition, taking the total to 271, including 112 children, the Health Ministry said. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The ministry does not say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants, but it said women and children make up around half of them. The UN and many independent experts consider its figures to be the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties. Israel disputes its toll but has not provided its own.
