UKRAINIAN SINGER JAMALA

Ukrainian singer Jamala wins Eurovision competition.

BY PEACE NEWS

JAMALA
BY PEACE NEWS
REPORTER

(PEACE NEWS)Jamala of Ukraine on Sunday won the immensely popular Eurovision Song Contest with a somber, controversial tune that evokes Moscow's deportation of members of her Crimean ethnic group during World War II.

She sang "1944," a song about the deportation of Crimean Tatars by the Soviet Union on orders of Josef Stalin. Her performance also was considered a strong rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin's 2014 military push into Ukraine, according to European media reports. Russia annexed Crimea.

Russian state media this week called the song anti-Russian; Moscow said it violated Eurovision rules.

Contest officials ruled the song didn't breach rules preventing "lyrics, speeches or gestures of a political or similar nature."

BY PEACE NEWS REPORTER