No love-letters from Iran
Written by Chris Forrester
Sunday, 14 February 2010 11:30
Following on from our story last Friday on illegal jamming of Deutsch Welle’s TV transmissions, it is now clear that Iran’s deliberate jamming extends again to the BBC, to the Voice of America and other broadcasters.
The BBC’s World Service, on Feb 12, reported that the BBC, and other affected broadcasters, had “condemned†the illegal and deliberate electronic interference of signals. The new wave of jamming occurred as Iranians marked the 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution.
The jamming is affecting services on Eutelsat’s Hotbird satellites which cover audiences across Europe and the Middle East. These include BBC Persian Television, the Voice of America Television Channel in Persian, the Radio Farda service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Deutsche Welle's Television and Radio services.
Eutelsat’s comments were blunt and to the point. It has complained to the French administration responsible for frequencies (ANFR) asking the ANFR to renew its objection to this interference to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and for this case to be addressed at the next meeting of the Radiocommunications Regulations Board, scheduled in March. Eutelsat asks that its complaint be addressed by the ITU as a priority issue.
In a joint statement Peter Horrocks, Director of BBC World Service, Erik Bettermann, Director of Deutsche Welle and Dan Austin, Director of Voice of America said: "We condemn any jamming of these channels. It contravenes international agreements and is interfering with the free and open flow of international transmissions that are protected by international treaties. We call upon satellite operators and those who regulate them to take urgent action to put pressure on Iran to stop this activity. The Iranian authorities are using the same satellite services to broadcast freely around the world including broadcasts in English and Arabic; at the same time they are denying their own people programmes coming from the same satellites from the rest of the world."
The statement continued: "We will not stop broadcasting accurate and impartial news and current affairs into Iran. We will try every avenue to give our large audiences in Iran the television news services that they want. The jamming violates article 45 of the constitution of the International Telecommunication Union that prohibits signal interference and we look to the international regulatory community to take a firmer stance on this deliberate act of jamming.
"Formal complaints have been submitted to the International Telecommunication Union, and other channels are being vigorously pursued to stop further jamming."
© Rapid TV News 2010