The Belgian singer Mustii has failed to make it through to the final of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. Now the 33-year-old from Brussels will be Saturday evening’s final in the Swedish city of Malmö as a spector. Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian protests against Israel’s participation in the Eurovision Song contest continued. A group of demonstrators gathered outside the gates of the Broadcasting Centre that the VRT shares with the Francophone public broadcaster RTBF in Brussels on Thursday evening.
Already having experienced technical problems during the rehearsals prior to the semi-final, Mustii and his band lacked the sharpness to really impress on Thursday evening.
While experts and observers in Malmö were quite positive about Mustii, his song "Before the Party's over" failed to convince on the night and so Saturday’s final will take place without a Belgian entry.
Protest
The political dimension of the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö was clearly felt as far away as Brussels, where there were also protests against Israel's participation.
A pro-Palestinian demonstration took place outside the gates of the VRT/RTBF Broadcasting Centre in the Brussels municipality of Schaarbeek. Both the VRT and RTBF broadcast Thursday evening’s semi-final live. This year’s Belgian participant Mustii had been chosen by RTBF. VRT and RTBF choose the Belgian entry on alternate years, so in 2025 it will be the VRT’s turn to choose Belgium’s representative.
At the start of the broadcast that included a performance by the Israeli singer Eden Golan with her song ‘Hurricane’, VRT television showed a message from one of the trade unions that represent staff at the Flemish public broadcaster. It stated that they supported the Palestinian population in Gaza and called for an immediate ceasefire. The message was shown again at the end the broadcast.