BRUSSELS, Belgium, — Within a written statement the Kurdish National Congress (KNK) based in Brussels called on the public to support Kurdish satellite channel Roj-TV.
To appease Turkey infuriated by the decision to disallow the questioning of Armenian genocide, the French company Eutelsat suspended Roj-TV broadcast from 21 January.
“This unilateral and outrageous decision by Eutelsat is completely illegitimate and contrary to universal law. It is violating freedom of expression, information, media and press,” said the KNK.
Copenhagen City Court had rejected the request of closure of Roj-TV on 10 January. The court indicated that “there is no legal ground for the revocation of the channel’s licence and the seizure of channel’s assets”.
Yet, the Court punished Roj- TV by a pecuniary penalty on the grounds of violating the anti-terror law of Denmark, which was criticized strongly by station’s defence attorneys and appealed almost simultaneously.
In spite of the court’s decision of rejecting closure and revocation Roj-TV’s licence, Etelsat has ended the contract of channel and stop unlinking it to its satellites unilaterally and illegitimately by the so called argumentation “to avoid incurring criminal liability as an accomplice to terrorist activities”.
The added in its statement; “We have been condemning strongly Eutelsat’s illegitimate decision against violating the freedom of expression and right of free media broadcasting of 40 million Kurdish people and the all oppressed minorities and groups living in Kurdistan and Turkey, who has been struggling for its cultural and political rights against Turkish authoritarian regime and the other dictatorships in Middle East for decades. It is very clear for us that this decision was forced to taken by Turkish government’s lobbying at French Government in the exchange of accepting genocide of Armenian People as a crime in French laws”.
The statement called on “all friends and democratic public audience for standing in solidarity with Roj-TV and Kurdish people against this dirty politics of Eutelsat and French Government, in collaboration with Turkish authoritarian regime”.
This decision, the KNK pointed out “is not only a great violation of Kurdish people’s freedom of expression, but also a very great threat against the rights of minorities and criminalization of freedom struggles by constituting a precedent”.
The statement ended with a call for messages to be sent by fax, e-mails, and post to protest against Eutelsat.
Fax : 00.33.1.53.98.37.00 or 00.33.1.53.98.37.88
For mail : voconnor@eutelsat.fr ; fgautier@eutelsat.fr
Post : Eutelsat SA, 70 rue BALARD, 75502 Paris CEDEX 15