{"id":36969,"date":"2016-04-26T09:00:45","date_gmt":"2016-04-26T13:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/?p=36969"},"modified":"2016-04-26T19:47:25","modified_gmt":"2016-04-26T23:47:25","slug":"israeli-eurovision-hopeful-claims-russian-border-police-ripped-up-his-passport-because-hes-gay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/?p=36969","title":{"rendered":"Gay Eurovision Entrant&#8217;s Passport Destroyed By Russian Border Police"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/?attachment_id=36970\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-36970\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-36970\" src=\"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/hovi-star-560x560.jpg\" alt=\"hovi star\" width=\"560\" height=\"560\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/hovi-star-560x560.jpg 560w, https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/hovi-star-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/hovi-star-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/hovi-star.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Israeli Eurovision Song Contest entrant <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/starborn.hovi.sekulets\/\">Hovi Star<\/a> <\/strong>said he was harassed by Russian border control officers for being gay on a recent trip to Moscow.<br \/>\nThe alleged homophobic incident started with airport\u00a0officers pointing and laughing at him and culminated with them\u00a0tearing his passport apart, Star said during a television interview in Malta.<br \/>\n&#8220;Maybe people in Moscow have a rough time with people like me, maybe because I\u2019m gay, maybe because I dress like this, maybe because I wear make-up, I don\u2019t know. But when I wanted to get into Moscow, I had problems with passport control. They told me I can\u2019t go in, they looked at my passport, they ripped my passport,&#8221; the Israeli singer, whose Eurovision entry Made of Stars is popular in Malta, told his interviewer.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YNI-hVFw8Fs\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The singer said that he was eventually let in, and went on to perform at a Eurovision preview event in the Russian capital. He was issued a new passport by the Israeli consulate in Moscow.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Let\u2019s take this as a lesson. I don\u2019t take it personally, I really like Sergei Lazarov and I like Russia. This wasn\u2019t a nice experience, we live, we learn, we continue, we smile and we give free love to everyone,&#8221;\u00a0he said.<br \/>\nStar told the Israeli news website Ynet that at first he didn&#8217;t want to make the incident public, but after the Spanish Eurovision entrant, who witnessed the incident, spoke out against Russia on a Spanish TV program, he decided to do so as well. (via\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.haaretz.com\/israel-news\/1.715965\">haaretz.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Israeli Eurovision Song Contest entrant Hovi Star said he was harassed by Russian border control officers for being gay on a recent trip to Moscow.<br \/>\nThe alleged homophobic incident started with airport\u00a0officers pointing and laughing at him and culminated with them\u00a0tearing his passport apart, Star said during a television interview in Malta.<br \/>\n&#8220;Maybe people in Moscow have [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[6118,6115,2836,6116,6117,6111,6114,6113,6112,3193,6119],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36969"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36969"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36975,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36969\/revisions\/36975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitgeistworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}