The winner of the 61st edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, Susana Alimivna Jamaladinova (Jamala), is wanted under an article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. This comes from a release from Russia’s Ministry of the Interior.
While no specific charge is mentioned, according to Russian media reports, she has been accused of slandering the Russian military. As a result, Jamala has been placed on Russia’s infamous list of persons accused of unspecified crimes, and has been actively searched for since October. Earlier this month she was sentenced in absentia by a Russian court.
This comes in addition to her 50-year ban from entering the Russian Federation, in effect since April 2022.
Jamala won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2016 with her song 1944. It was dedicated to the Crimean Tatars who were deported to Central Asia during the Stalinist regime. Jamala herself was born in Kyrgyzstan, a direct result of the deportation referenced in her song.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, Jamala and her family returned to Crimea – part of newly independent Ukraine. 1944 was released just two years after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in a referendum that has not been recognized by a large part of the international community.
As a result of the success of the song, Jamala caught the ire of Russian authorities.
You say no specific charge was mentioned. We all know what crime Jamala has committed, according to Russia: the crime of simply being Ukrainian!
Russia must never be allowed to return to ESC until Putin is either dead or in prison, the country has stopped the war & apologsed profusely for it as well having paid a lot as compensation. I know money will not bring back the dead, nor cure the wounded, but it will help rebuld the country. Putin has unsuccessfully tried to eradicate Ukraine from the map, yet all he’s succeeding in doing is destroying a lot of buldings & unifying the West in suport of Ukraine.