This year, the EBU [European Broadcasting Union] has an extra challenge regarding Eurovision. It has to decide how it tackles the issue of Azerbaijan's awful human rights record – not because it necessarily wants to but because activists in Baku and elsewhere, plus media and some governments in Europe, have forced the issue into the spotlight. What has come to light? A terrible record on freedom of expression, with six journalists in prison on spurious charges...For a media alliance that lives off freedom of speech to ignore abuses of that freedom on the doorstep of the show's sparkling seafront venue undercuts the organisation's own credibility.