Press Release

March 23, 1999

Telephone: (202) 483-6444

Kurds Protestthe Closure of their Television Station, Med TV at CNN

[Editor's note: the Kurds and their friends will be demonsrating in front of Cable Network News (CNN) for its indifference to the plight of the Kurds. We will meet at 820 First Street NE in Washington, DC, at 10:00 am on Wednesday, March 24, 1999. Kurds are urged to wear their national costumes.]

On Monday, March 22, 1999, the British Independent Television Commission (ITC) ordered the Belgium based Med TV, the Kurdish satellite television to go off the air for three weeks, apparently for "inciting" violence. The joy in Ankara was immediate: its spokesman noted that, 3We hope that Med TV will be closed not just for 21 days but forever.2

According to Hikmet Tabak, the Director of Med TV, his station has simply provided the Kurds a channel to express themselves. In a telephone conversation with our office this morning, Mr. Tabak noted that, "We categorically reject the proposition that we have advocated violence. Like all television stations, including the BBC, the Reuters and the German televisions, we broadcast the statement of Mr. Osman Ocalan, the brother of imprisoned Kurdish leader, Abdullah Ocalan, which called for a total mobilization on the part of the Kurds, verbatim. Neither we nor the European stations censored his statement. We find it odd that we are punished for something that the Europeans take for granted for themselves."

Turkey, home to 15 to 20 million Kurds, has banned the Kurdish language on its territory since 1923, and has repeatedly urged the ITC to bar the Med TV from broadcasting. On its own Turkish stations, on the other hand, the war on the Kurds is portrayed as a patriotic duty and in campaigns titled, 3With Soldiers Hand in Hand2, violence is advocated, hatred is cultivated and money towards the war effort is collected on national television. With the advent of satellite dishes, these Turkish stations can now be viewed in Paris, London and New York as well.

Med TV, since its inception in 1994, has been forced to go off air before. In 1996, the Turkish academic Haluk Gerger noted the following statement when the station went off the air: "[Med TV] was a school for millions to understand and respect different cultures, values, and perspectives. [...] Working for it, watching it, participating in its programs, we have been infected with the Œdisease of freedom1 as the enemies of Med TV would call it."

This forum for freedom of expression for the Kurds is now silenced again. The American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN) joins Mr. Tabak, the Director of Med TV, in urging the ITC to reconsider its decision and allow the first and only Kurdish satellite television station to resume its broadcasting immediately.