- Title: UKRAINE-CRISIS/CRIMEAN TATARS-TV CHANNEL Crimean Tatar TV channel back on air
- Date: 23rd July 2015
- Summary: KIEV, UKRAINE (JULY 22, 2015) (REUTERS) ATR NEWS CHIEF EDITOR, OSMAN PASHAYEV, TALKING TO JOURNALISTS IN NEWSROOM CRIMEAN TATAR AND ATR FLAGS
- Embargoed: 7th August 2015 13:00
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- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVA51YJU5CBZQNPEPGR3KD1E0G5P
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- Story Text: The world's only Crimean Tatar TV channel, ATR, on Wednesday (July 22) defended its decision to start rebroadcasting from Kiev after it was silenced in Crimea in April.
Journalists have set up a temporary office and hope to have most of their programmes back on air after ATR, which formerly broadcast under a Ukrainian licence, sought four times to re-register with Russia's media regulator, Roskomnadzor, to stay on the air. But each time it was turned down because of alleged mistakes in its applications, Tatar officials said.
Programming officially restarted on June 18, the first day of Ramadan -- an important day for the Tatars, a Muslim people who are indigenous to the Black Sea peninsula and number about 300,000 in Crimea's population of two million. They opposed the Russian annexation in March 2014, which followed the overthrow of a Moscow-backed president in Kiev.
ATR's silencing sparked an outcry in April, with Kiev accusing Moscow of trying to stamp out non-Russian influence on the peninsula.
"Great union took place around the channel. The Crimean Tatar diaspora learnt about the life of Crimea from the channel. So the first function of the channel is uniting. Secondly, the fact that we broadcast in Ukraine means - when possible - we can tell Ukraine about Crimea because Crimea started disappearing from the agenda in Ukraine. We are presented on all the main cable networks of Ukraine," ATR News Chief Editor, Osman Pashayev, said on Wednesday.
The channel has said that it will continue to broadcast in Crimean Tatar, Ukrainian and Russian and apply to international organisations for financial support rather than seeking financing from the state.
The station, which broadcast in the Tatar language to what officials say was an audience of 4 million people in Crimea and beyond, originally went off the air just after midnight on April 1 rather than face fines of up to $90,000.
The Deputy Head of ATR, Ayder Muzhdabaev, was highly critical of the channel's initial closure.
"If you keep silent, then let it be, you may as well live as vegetables. If you defend your rights and declare yourselves as Crimean Tatar people who must participate in their fate and must be a host on their land, then you must be deported and your media must be shut down," he told Reuters.
"We want Ukraine and the world to see the reality in Crimea, see the tough life of people, see their desperation, their pain because there is such a deceptive picture that everything seems fine (in Crimea), and many people have told me that it seems like no one complains and everything is fine in Crimea, it's more or less normal. But in fact, no one complains in the gulag," he added, referencing Soviet-era forced labour camps.
Only part of the ATR team has relocated to Kiev, but journalists at the station said that they were hopeful for the future of their programming.
"We have always presented ourselves as an independent TV channel," host Safiye Ablyayeva said.
"Now if we would like to cover Crimea, we have our correspondents, we do not say their names because it is dangerous to stay there. But they are ready to film, to continue. Surely there will be threats, suppression of those employees who stay there. There are good people who - I think - will be ready to send us some footage, share it with us so we will show what is actually happening in Crimea," host Shevket Namatullayev added.
Human rights organisations said the silencing of ATR was part of a pattern of stifling Crimean Tatar language outlets and other pro-Ukraine media there.
Re-registration had also been refused to the radio station Maydan, a website 15minut.org and two newspapers, Amnesty International said. A popular children's television channel had also been closed down.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said that since annexation, Crimea's new authorities had carried out raids on several media outlets, confiscating and damaging equipment. Several journalists and bloggers critical of the authorities had been detained, harassed or attacked, it said in a statement. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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