Youth NGO calls for annulling Junior Eurovision results

An Armenian youth NGO has asked the Public Television to annul the results of the 2012 Junior Eurovision’s national qualifier.

At a news conference on Tuesday, the president of the Talented Generation NGO, Mikael Sargsyan, said they are calling for a new selection contest that would involve an open voting by the jury.

It comes after Compass Band won the final round of the Junior Eurovision’s qualifiers in Yerevan. Days later, it turned out that the winning participant, who is only nine, does not meet the age requirement. Under the Eurovision standards, young participants should be aged between 10 and 15.

Gohar Gasparyan, who is in charge of Armenia’s delegation to Eurovision, issued on Monday a statement, saying that each of the four members of the band is 13.

“It is immoral to remove a child who is the groundwork of victory and the core of the band,” she said.

Sargsyan complained that Public Television had aired the contest 30 minutes later than initially announced.

“The people did not have a chance to watch about seven or eight children, who naturally lost votes,” he said, urging for measures to pay back to the audience the sums which they spent in vain on the SMS voting.

Sargsyan further said that the Public Television had violated standards during the previous years too.

“We do not want to apply to European organizations as we are willing to solve the problem in Armenia. But if things go on this way, Armenia will move towards disqualification,” he noted.

Sargsyan added that they have sent a letter to the president, the speaker of the National Assembly and the Ministry of Culture to bring attention to the problem.