TV Official Dismisses Utelsat Anti-Iran Move As Illegal

Tehran, Oct 16, IRNA – Director of Iran’s Al-Kawthar TV channel Ali Khandaq-Abadi termed as illegal the move of the Utelsat company in barring a number of Iranian TV channels. He told IRNA on Tuesday that the move lacked any legal bases and was against their claims of freedom of expression and freedom of free flow of information. He noted that Iran has been facing many pressures from different media since a long time ago for its precise reporting of events. The official said the question now is that on what legal basis the Utelsat has stopped broadcasting several Iranian international channels. European satellite provider Eutelsat SA has stopped the broadcast of several Iranian satellite channels, including Press TV, al-Alam, Jam-e-Jam 1 and 2, Sahar 1 and 2, Islamic Republic of Iran News Network, Quran TV, and the Arabic-language al-Kawthar following an order by the European Commission. In a flagrant violation of the freedom of speech, the company ordered media services company, Arqiva, to take the Iranian satellite channels off one of its Hot Bird frequencies on Monday. The decision follows months of jamming of Iranian channels by European satellite companies./end