Open skies,Satellite broadcasting can deliver clear, uniform signals across the entire Middle East region.
Satellite broadcasting can deliver clear, uniform signals across the entire Middle East region.
Open skies
Satellite broadcasting can deliver clear, uniform signals across the entire Middle East region. However, the laws and regulations guiding the industry can be unclear and their boundaries blurred, writes Sonya Shaykhoun.
The MENA satellite TV industry owes its success in part to the Gulf War, which began on January 1991, a time when a spate of MENA-oriented satellite TV channels and, indeed, TV platforms appeared.
For example, the Egyptian-government owned Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) bought space capacity on a previously unused transponder to broadcast programs on a channel that would become the Egyptian Space Channel. Orbit, (now Orbit Showtime Network), launched from Rome in 1994 and the Middle East Broadcasting Centre (MBC) launched in London in 1991.
Now there are reportedly more than 400 channels transmitting in the MENA region via satellite, including a slew of Western channels such as CNN and France TV, a significant increase from the 13 channels that were in operation in 1993.
Satellite TV broadcasting regulation did not develop at the same pace as the commercial industry in MENA and as such, satellite channels and platforms, many of which are privately owned, escaped blanket censorship to a large extent and a new era of more open political discussion and debate in Arab broadcasting was born. Notwithstanding the lack of formal censorship of satellite TV, the Saudi-owned channels of MBC and ART all engaged in self-censorship, although there are exceptions, such as the notoriously uncensored Al Jazeera.
Not all satellite channels have escaped censorship. “Jamming”, typically a deliberate action affecting the immediate geographical area of the transmitter’s range, is a term that describes the transmission of radio or TV signals disrupting the signal to prevent reception on the ground.
Deliberate jamming breaches international law, although inadvertent signal interference (as a result of a badly tuned or unduly powerful transmitter for example) is quite ordinary. Jamming is often a political act, practiced by many administrations around the world: the United States is known to have recently jammed legal Cuban radio and TV news broadcasts; Indonesia jammed Tongan satellite signals in 1997; Cuba, Libya, Syria and Egypt have all reportedly jammed foreign satellite signals for ostensibly political motivations.
The most notable recent example of jamming in the MENA region involved the ostensibly deliberate jamming of foreign TV stations in Iran during the June 2009 presidential elections, which impacted the transmission of BBC Persian programming and Farsi-language satellite broadcasts of the Voice of America. Press freedom group Reporters Without Borders noted that the Internet and mobile network became slow and that sites like YouTube, Facebook and several pro-reform sites were difficult or impossible to access.
Iran could be described as a chronic offender, having jammed foreign language news shows, Radio Farda and VOA English during the 2005 presidential elections. Ironically, in 2003, then-President Khatamei and Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karroubi demanded that a certain military organisation within Iran stop transmitting disruptive signals over Tehran from military bases and mobile vehicular stations. Such signals were known to be jamming satellites. In addition the Health Ministry and Department of the Environment became involved as the signals have a deleterious effect on citizens and the environment.
Politics and satellite TV often clash in the MENA region, as proven by the unceremonious ejection of various TV channels from Media Cities in the region. However, political interference can work in a positive manner. For example, in December 2009 when the Egyptian President successfully stopped state-owned Media Production City from taking Orbit, which broadcasts a popular current affairs programme entitled Al Qahera Al Youm (Cairo Today), off air.
The clash between politics and the satellite broadcasting industry begs the question of what legal recourse satellite TV channels and platforms have against jamming and/or forced closure. This article examines the legality of closing down satellite channels and blocking signals in the MENA region in the context of international and regional law and what satellite operators and/or satellite TV channels can do in the event they are subjected to jamming or forced closure.
The commercial satellite industry is governed by international treaties and international customary law applied at an international, regional and national level. However, there is a constant tension between international space law and the concept of national sovereignty.
The United Nations (UN) sponsored treaties and principles form an international legal framework for international space law on the basis that space should be open to all mankind without discrimination and to establish a global principle ensuring that the benefits of space exploration and use should be extended to all mankind without reference to wealth or might. Article 1 of the Outer Space Treaty, adopted by the General Assembly in its resolution 1962 (XVIII) of 13 December 1963, expresses this concept which is echoed in the current regulation of satellite communications regarding the use of radio spectrum and orbital positions.
The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), headquartered in Geneva, is the UN agency for information and communication technology issues and the global focal point for governments and the private sector in developing networks and services. The ITU, however, is scant on enforcement capabilities should one of the Member States offend the international order. The French National Frequencies Agency (ANF) recently appealed to the ITU over a period of seven months to stop Iran from blocking satellite signals from the BBC World Service’s Persian language broadcasts into Iran. A result is still pending.
