And Azerbaijan is hosting the contest right now. A journalist friend of mine currently reporting from Baku was presented with a newspaper on hir hotel room, reading:
"[...] tourists and visitors coming to Azerbaijan will be able to personally become convinced that the Azerbaijani society is tolerant. Political pluralism and human rights have been fully ensured in Azerbaijan. The rules of our civil society do not lag behind European ones."
The EBU is a pretty tolerant organization, I guess, but tracking down people voting in the contest... What can I say? Yay nationalism.
If this happened at all, I would expect that the EBU wasn't involved. A 'sufficiently powerful' state does not need cooperation of the owner of a phone number to check who SMSes what to it.
"[...] tourists and visitors coming to Azerbaijan will be able to personally become convinced that the Azerbaijani society is tolerant. Political pluralism and human rights have been fully ensured in Azerbaijan. The rules of our civil society do not lag behind European ones."
The EBU is a pretty tolerant organization, I guess, but tracking down people voting in the contest... What can I say? Yay nationalism.