But this victory was short-lived, and not without costs. President Ilham Aliyev and other high-level officials have repeatedly called activists who were critical in the run-up to Eurovision „anti-national forces“ and „traitors“, with a senior presidential adviser calling for public hatred to be shown to them. Human rights lawyer Bakhtiyar Mammadov, who represented families that were forcibly evicted from the area where the Eurovision venue, Crystal Hall, was constructed, was sentenced to eight years in prison on what seem to be politically motivated charges of extortion.