Petition to stop BBC broadcasting Eurovision song that glamorises sexual strangulation (before the watershed!)

Apparently Norway has been asked to tone down their performance because the dancing was too sexualised. But still silence on the lyrics to Romania’s song.

Hmm, the BBC had an article yesterday about a potential boycott of Eurovision, and I thought, OK, this issue is getting attention. But no, of course not, it was about the participation of Israel.

Campaigning and bringing in laws against 'Non-Fatal Strangulation' seems to have a heavy bias towards English speaking countries so far. I thought I would look at how the song is being presented by the sponsoring TV station. I have nothing to do with Romania in my work or personal life, but I can skim pages fairly well thanks to my Spanish (and Latin). Anyway, there's the translate button too. The controversy is not highlighted so far as I can see [by the broadcaster... we know there have been criticisms within Romania as mentioned up-thread]. What I do notice is a defensive mention of 'it's metaphorical not literal'. There's also a call to break away from 'Dracula, Transylvania and folk', but I can't say this is the way to go.

Link is a live one so things might change.

Eurovision 2026 - Pagina 1 | TVR.RO

How dystopian. Thank you for the warning.

Stopped watching years ago, but that is utterly revolting.

i remember the days of ‘Sing little birdie’. It’s just not the same nowadays.

I signed the other day after your earlier thread. I'm still disgusted. How can it be ok to have a song played at any time of day that glamorises an abhorrent and illegal act?

I'm making plans to accidentally "forget" it's Eurovision and book cinema tickets. I can't sit there with DC and pretend this is remotely normal or ok. We normally watch as a family and play the songs on Spotify for weeks after. Really cross that this is being ruined by misogynistic bollocks like this 😡

Aphra Brandreth.

Thank you. @stinkingbishop Who is your MP? Our Line HQ is on X but I'd love some help in getting the right people tagged and shared with (trying to do quite a lot at once on different platforms and it is proving hard to keep on top of it all!)

Our MP has written to Lisa Nandy.

Have you tried contacting the presenters?

@GCScot thank you. I've learnt that we get a boost in signatures when other people promote it - such as @DreamyHedgehog did. People tend to respond better to that than what might sound more like preaching when directly from our collective. So if anyone on here would be willing to do that, I'd be grateful.

(One of the biggest jumps in signatures came from a Romanian woman who publicly wrote about the petition, and that issues with strangulation and domestic abuse in Romania).

@DreamyHedgehog and @OurLine thanks for your work in drawing attention to this issue. I'm surprised there aren't more signatures on the petition. Would you consider moving this thread/reposting on a board which gets more traffic, like AIBU? I think lots of MNetters would care about this but many of them aren't on FWR

Thank you everyone. The petition now has 3,800 signatures.
We have created our own Eurovision song in protest against the BBC's decision not to challenge the lyrics. We have posted our son here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3IxNUxSLzGvvWKTQKrDyPA

We have our petition still here: https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-bbc-airing-eurovision-content-that-normalises-violence-against-women

We are also on instagram and X (ourlinehq) where we have posted some free posters and info about non-fatal strangulation.
But we are not well connected on social media (yet) so would really love your support to share.

We have seen from the petition stats that a lot of the signatures came via Whatsapp. Our theory on this is people might be more likely to sign if it is shared to them that way if someone asks them to. Any help on this would mean a lot!

This campaign was set up by a survivor of strangulation (whose perpetrator was convicted under the newish-law) so it is driven by a desire to get out more info out to the public on this.

Your support would be fab - please share.

Thank you

They talked about this on woman’s hour on 30th March. A BBC program but the BBC declined to comment.

Someone mentioned the risk of stroke following strangulation. It's outlined in this systematic review - along with many other horrific outcomes, including death.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33432860/

Have written to my MP. The Institute for Addressing Strangulation is also raising it publicly.

Thanks for doing the petition OP.

Thank you all for the signatures and shares. We have created a website now where we'll upload resources: https://www.ourlinehq.org/
It states the aim of this campaign which is not only about Eurovision but also raising awareness of the harms and risks - which increasingly affect young people. Grateful for any shares of the petition and any promotion you can do about it in your own networks and social media. Thanks

signed.

Agree

Dear God 🤬

We'd be really grateful for any sharing you can do of this petition.

We're also hoping that even people defending it, will learn about the risks of strangulation and we can raise awareness of it. https://medium.com/@support2report/theres-a-eurovision-song-called-choke-me-this-is-why-it-matters-1cd1e2b9df14

The petition featured on the ITV news channels online. We have been horrified by some of the comments saying strangulation is normal and even comments from young people saying it can be done carefully.

There should be a public awareness campaign about the risks of strangulation. We hope that will happen. Avon & Somerset PCC has started a campaign (www.avonandsomerset-pcc.gov.uk/news/2026/03/pcc-launches-campaign-on-the-dangers-of-non%E2%80%91fatal-strangulation/?utm_source=chatgpt.com) but it really needs to be a national campaign.

We would be really grateful for your help in getting the petition out to more people and open to any of the Mumsnet hive's brainy ideas of what we can do to promote it. Thanks

@FernandoSor that doesn't deal with the request to make her lungs explode.

No, I don't believe the justification. There's nothing in it that works as a metaphor for self doubt even with the broadest allowances for translation errors.

This

Thanks for sharing @DreamyHedgehog . Signed

The singer (who is also credited as a songwriter) says that the lyrics are a metaphor for self doubt. To be honest I always give some leeway to those who are writing in a second language but perhaps in this case a simple fix would be to replace every occurrence of ‘choke’ with ‘poke’. The song would still work very well.

The petition hasn't taken off into the numbers I'd hoped

@OurLine How many signatures is considered significant? Surely the BBC could just read what you have written or watch your video and realise that Sarah Cox, Rylan and/or Graham Norton are going to be having to introduce this song to a family audience and what on earth will they say to make it alright? They are going to have to issue warnings surely. How many complaints are they going to get?

Eurovision is very much a minority interest in the UK especially before the event but plenty of family’s will be watching together on the night. Maybe it will go over a lot of people’s heads but give it any thought at all and it’s just not ok.

If they could change the lyrics it is a good song.

If anyone is interested in joining our work and helping out with other petitions and campaigns, please get in touch. We've only just set up and we're going to be a collective working together to create positive change - focused mostly on issues affecting women and children. This was our first campaign. We are working on a website that will be up this week. Thanks