After Iceland joined Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands, and Slovenia in withdrawing from Eurovision 2026, 17 Portuguese musicians competing in the national selection show Festival da Cancao said they would refuse to represent Portugal even if selected for the next year\u2019s song contest, Anadolu reports.<\/p>\n
The entrants in the internal contest to elect a representative issued a statement protesting Israel\u2019s controversial participation in the contest, according to Euronews.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith words and with songs, we act within the possibilities we are given. We do not accept complicity with the violation of Human Rights,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite Russia\u2019s ban from Eurovision 2022 for political reasons, we were surprised to see that the same stance was not taken towards Israel, which, according to the United Nations, is committing acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
In response, Portugal\u2019s public broadcaster RTP said: \u201cRegardless of the decision of the artists who subscribe to the statement, RTP will once again organise Festival da Can\u00e7\u00e3o and reaffirms its participation at the Eurovision Song Contest 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
Salvador Sobral, Portugal\u2019s only Eurovision winner, also criticized RTP\u2019s position in a video shared on social media, accusing the broadcaster of \u201cpolitical cowardice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Public outrage has meanwhile spread across Portugal, leading to the launch of a petition calling for the country\u2019s immediate withdrawal from Eurovision.<\/p>\n
The petition, which has gathered more than 22,000 signatures, argues that RTP\u2019s backing of Israel\u2019s participation \u201cputs Portugal on the wrong side of history.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis stance is unacceptable in the face of the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe and military offensive in the Gaza Strip, and in the face of the vote rigging scandals that marred the 2025 edition in Basel, proving the inability of the organisation (EBU) to curb the politicisation of the event,\u201d the petition said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Iceland joined Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands, and Slovenia in withdrawing from Eurovision 2026, 17 Portuguese musicians competing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-185080","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}