Press Release

July 5, 1996

202.483.6444

MED-TV Has Been Banned

The Kurdish television station MED-TV was due to start sending out its signal via the Eutel satellite of the Polish state television company PTT as of July 2. But due to pressure from the Turkish government, Polish authorities have canceled the deal. For the past three months, MED-TV was broadcast with the help of the government of Portugal, but this country also revoked the station s license. Portugal, following after Spain, France, and Germany, also bowed to pressure from Turkey.

MED-TV began multi-lingual satellite broadcasts on May 15, 1995, fulfilling a need for 35 million Kurds. Internationally, this step was welcomed as an attempt to give a voice to the world s largest stateless people. (Kurdish-language broadcasting is still illegal in Turkey and some other countries.) MED-TV broadcast for 6 hours each day, providing programming in Kurdish, Turkish, Assyrian, and Arabic. The signal could be received in all of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, a huge potential viewership in 34 countries.

From the very beginning, the Turkish government exerted great political pressure, coupled with economic threats, on the governments of Europe, urging them to deny broadcast access to MED-TV. But they had no luck for the past 16 months. The Kurds enjoyed their very own television station! MED-TV is a legal company, privately owned, organized by an association of international Kurdish business people, licensed and regulated by the Independent Television Commission (ITC) in London. The station always fulfilled all of its legal and contract requirements, and it also abided by European laws concerning international broadcasting. But now, economic and political pressure from the Turkish government are threatening the integrity of internationally-recognized standards of free speech. MED-TV's future is now dependent on whether countries choose to adhere to international broadcast conventions or bow to pressure from Turkey.

MED-TV has vowed to carry on. A variety of options are being examined in order to keep fulfilling the legitimate desire of the Kurdish people to have an uncensored voice of their own, one which is respected by the governments of the world.

Visit MED-TV's homepage for more information.