Eurovision security to be tight due to unrest fears

SECURITY will be tight during next month’s Eurovision Song Contest in Malmo in southern Sweden, police said, citing demonstrations that could lead to unrest and a heightened threat of terrorism.

“The security is going to be rigorous,” said city police chief Petra Stenkula, according to Swedish broadcaster TV4. Pro-Palestinian activists who want Israel out of the song contest have announced plans for large rallies in central Malmo, several miles from the

Malmo Arena contest venue. Last year, Sweden raised its terror threat level one notch to “high”, the fourth of five levels, for the first time since 2016 amid a deteriorating security situation following recent burnings of the Koran that triggered protests in the Muslim world.

Police said yesterday that an application to stage a demonstration in Malmo to burn a copy of the Koran before the song contest had been handed in. There is no law in Sweden specifically prohibiting the burning or desecration of religious texts. Like many Western countries, Sweden does not have any blasphemy laws. “Freedom of expression is strong in Sweden,” Ms Stenkula said, according to the Malmo newspaper, Sydsvenska.

She said Swedish police will get reinforcements from across the country as well as from Norway and Denmark. She did not provide details. “We have terror threat level four, so we cannot empty the whole of Sweden of police officers” during the song contest, she added.

The live televised final is scheduled for May 11, with semi-finals on May 7 and May 9. Pro-Palestinian activists are planning two large demonstrations to protest at Israel’s participation in Eurovision. Activists and some musicians have urged the European Broadcasting Union, the event organiser, to drop Israel from the event over its conduct of the war against Hamas in Gaza.

The United Arab Emirates is attempting to dry out after the heaviest rain ever recorded in the desert nation. The deluge flooded Dubai International Airport, disrupting flights through the world’s busiest hub for international travel. The state-run WAM news agency called Tuesday’s rain “a historic weather event” that surpassed “anything documented since the start of data collection in 1949”. That was before the discovery of crude oil in the energy-rich nation which was then part of a British protectorate known as the Trucial States. Rain also fell in Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. One reason for the acute rain in the UAE may have been “cloud seeding”, in which small planes flown by the government go through clouds burning special salt flares. Those flares can increase precipitation.