A row broke out last last week after internal document, approved by the Eurovision Song Contest’sReference Group committee in April, was leaked which listed nine flags as “specifically not allowed” during the competition, which will begin next weekend at Stockholm’s Globe Arena. 

 

As well as the Palestinian flag, the list also included that of banned terror group Islamic State. 

 

“To include it in such a list is insulting,”  Hala Husni Fariz told The Local.  “They say they have based our categorisation on the UN, well then they have made a mistake, a big one, and they have to correct it.” 

 

Husni Fariz was appointed Palestine’s ambassador to Sweden in January 2015, following the government's decision to recognise Palestine as a state. 

 

The list includes the flags of other contentious political entities such as the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Basque country and Nagorno-Karabakh, and Kosovo. 

 

Husni Fariz pointed out that the Palestinian flag had been hoisted at the United Nations in New York in 2015, at the embassy’s premises in Sweden, and frequently at official occasions in Sweden, which recognised Palestine in 2014. 

 

“This flag is an official flag which represents a state recognised by 136 countries and which is an observer at the United Nations,” she said. 

 

“We are not members of Eurovision, and we don’t have any participants, so why was our flag included on anything like that? I don’t believe that it should be banned. Why should it be banned?”

 

The European Broadcasting Union, which is organising the contest alongside SVT, has that the only flags allowed to be flown are those of the participating countries, the UN, the EU, and the gay pride flag. 

 

According to Husni Fariz, the Palestinian diplomat Saeb Erekat has sent a letter to the EBU demanding a public and official policy. 

 

The flags on the list include: 

 

Kosovo

 

Nagorno-Karabach

 

The Basque country

 

Islamic State

 

Crimea

 

Palestine

 

Donetsk People’s Republic

 

Northern Cyprus

 

Transnistria