NICOSIA, CYPRUS (AP) – A man is charged with threats and disruption after he stormed the grounds of Cyprus’ public broadcaster to protest what he said was the country’s “blasphemous” entry into this year’s Eurovision Song Contest , Sunday.
Police told The Associated Press the man, who has not yet been named, was released after being charged with four charges, including being verbally abusive.
Police said witnesses to the incident on Saturday told investigators the man verbally assaulted employees outside the news department of the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation. He was apparently upset that the announcer chose the song “El Diablo” (“The Devil”) performed by Greek singer Elena Tsagrinou to represent Cyprus, because he said it was an insult to Christianity.
In an amateur video of the man confronting CyBC staff, he saw him yelling at a number of employees in the garden and asking how they could justify supporting such a song.
The title of “El Diablo” as well as the lyrics – “I gave my heart to el diablo … because he tells me I’m his angel” – touched a rough nerve in some in the eastern Mediterranean island , who regard it as chock-full of satanic connotations.
According to the Cyprus News Agency, an association representing theologians who teach in high schools has expressed their ‘disgust’ over the song and called for it to be withdrawn because it ‘promises lifelong commitment and confesses love for Satan’.
The agency also reported that the broadcaster had received threatening calls that ‘it would be burned down because of the song’.
The far-right political party of ELAM issued a statement saying even though the text of the song is metaphorical, “it attacks our faith and insults it in a shadowy way.”
Others have meanwhile taken to social media to mock ‘El Diablo’ as a good song, to defend it as a detailed defense of a ‘scorching love affair’ or to label the negative religious zealots for it.
Cyprus’s best performance ever in the popular music competition was as runner-up in 2018 with the song “El Fuego” by singer Eleni Foureira.
The annual Eurovision Song Contest is a beloved European institution that is watched by millions, and regularly includes songs that are controversial, in dubious taste or simply bad.