Imagine Dragons have defended their recent shows in Azerbaijan and Israel, the former of which drew heavy condemnation from singer . Tankian sent the pop-rock band a letter last year, when they were planning to play at the Baku Olympic Stadium in September, hoping to dissuade them due to the actions of Azerbaijan’s authoritarian president Ilham Aliyev. The Armenian-American singer believed that the concert “would help whitewash the dictatorial regime’s image”.
He also called attention to an report, which contained a warning from a former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, saying that Azerbaijan was preparing for genocide against ethnic Armenians in its Nagorno-Karabakh region. Imagine Dragons seemingly ignored Tankian’s letter and proceeded with the Baku gig on September 2, which the vocalist in a recent interview. “Look, I’m not a judge for people to tell bands where to play, or where not to play,” he told journalist Paul Brannigan.
“You have other artists playing in very questionable kingdoms, run by one person, where people don’t have a lot of human rights, and I get that they’re doing it for money, that they’re artists, that they're entertaining, all of that. Sign up below to get the latest from Metal Hammer, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox! “But when there’s a government that’s about to commit ethnic cleansing, when Azerbaijan was starving the 120,000 Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, and not allowing any .
