The “high risk” of possible violent protests and repercussions on public safety convinced the University of Foggia to cancel the screening of the final of the Eurovision Song Contest, live on TV from the Malmö Arena (Sweden).
The live broadcast was scheduled for yesterday evening at the Department of Humanistic Studies in via Arpi, as part of a series of meetings in the wake of the ‘Europe Day’ celebrations organized in collaboration with the Erasmus Student Network. The “pressing news of threats and protests” suggested that the University cancel the broadcast of the event.
The decision was announced only a few minutes earlier.
“Music has always been considered a vehicle of pacification between peoples and not a divisive instrument – declared the rector Lorenzo Lo Muzio -. The initiative to broadcast the Eurovision Contest live, promoted by the University, was aimed precisely in this direction: to promote the socialization and integration of the numerous international students of our University by taking advantage of an international music event, prohibiting any exploitation, in the sense diametrically opposed to the philosophy that inspires it. Although regretfully, following pressing threats of non-peaceful protests, we have decided to cancel the initiative to protect students and all participants from possible accidents and disorder.”
The Eurovision organization had forbidden the inclusion of any reference to the situation in Palestine.
Arcigay Foggia ‘Le Bigotte’ and Link Foggia, in recent days, had branded as “the initiative to project the broadcast of the musical contest in a place, the academic one, which should be of comparison, culture, political debate and political elaboration, against any type of invisibilization of identities is questionable”.
