DENMARK: Roj TV is a Kurdish broadcaster based in Denmark and is close to Turkey's rebel PKK group

Record ID: 489974

  • Title: DENMARK: Roj TV is a Kurdish broadcaster based in Denmark and is close to Turkey's rebel PKK group
  • Date: 22nd November 2007
  • Summary: TELEVISION SCREEN SHOWING ROJ TV AT KURDISH COMMUNITY CLUB IN COPENHAGEN KURDISH MEN WATCHING ROJ TV AT COMMUNITY CENTRE (SOUNDBITE) (English) KURDISH RESIDENT OF COPENHAGEN SEYDO BADRI SAYING: "It's very important because it unites the Kurdish people and it's the only channel that broadcasts from Europe and it is the only channel that is not and because it's broadcasting from Europe it's not censored, it's very free. It's as free as a Danish channel." COMPUTER SCREEN SHOWING MEN FIRING RIFLES
  • Embargoed: 7th December 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Denmark
  • Country: Denmark
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz
  • Reuters ID: LVA3B3Z6U9XVB5RORD5CH7UR7U3O
  • Story Text: Roj TV is a Kurdish broadcaster based in Denmark and is close to Turkey's rebel PKK group. But it is a controversial station which Turkey accuses of being a mouthpiece of the PKK.
    Roj Television is a pro-Kurdish satellite channel based in Denmark which transmits programming on a variety of subjects including history, culture and lifestyle as well as breaking news to kurds across Europe and the Middle East.
    Roj TV, which has links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), is widely seen by Kurds in Turkey and Ankara has accused the channel of being a mouthpiece of the PKK, which took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 with the aim of carving out an ethnic homeland in the southeast.
    More than 30,000 people have since been killed in that conflict and The EU and the United States, as well as Turkey, view the PKK as a terrorist organisation.
    In 2006, the Turkish authorities complained to the Danish TV and Radio board that Roj TV was broadcasting propaganda for the PKK and called on the channel to be shut down.
    The Danish government resisted pressure from Turkey to shut the station, citing freedom of expression.
    The founder and director of Roj TV, Manouchehr Tahsili Zonoozi, says he was happy by the stance taken on the station by the Danish authorities to the accusations from Turkey.
    "You know in that accusations answer, especially from the media secretary of Denmark which they also have in English on their website, it was a good answer," he says.
    Erik Nordahl Svendsen, the Director of the Danish Media Secretary at the Ministry of Culture which administers broadcast licenses, says that Denmark conducted an investigation into the allegations against Roj TV by the Turkish authorities and decided they were unfounded.
    "The board has had complaints from some Turkish authorities, that in specific news items there was some incitement to hatred and the board has looked into that and found that there was no incitement to hatred," he says.
    Following calls for the closure of Roj TV by the Turkish authorities, 56 kurdish mayors from Turkey's troubled southeast were put on trial in 2006 facing charges of "knowingly and willingly" helping Kurdish rebels by writing to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen urging him not to close Denmark-based Roj TV.
    Rasmussen has refused to close down the station, citing freedom of expression. He also criticised the trial, saying it contravened the values of the EU, which Turkey hopes to join.
    Turkey is under EU pressure to improve the cultural rights of its ethnic minorities, especially the 12 million Kurds who until the 1990s were banned from using their language in public.
    Brussels has also called on Turkey to lower the 10 percent threshold of votes needed to enter parliament in Ankara, which has prevented Kurdish parties from winning seats.
    Tension have recently been high in Turkey after Ankara threatened that it may launch a cross-border military offensive into northern Iraq after Kurdish rebels killed 17 Turkish soldiers in an ambush in October near the Iraqi border.
    Some 3,000 PKK fighters are based in camps in northern Iraq and many frequently cross the border to launch attacks.
    Turkey's large-scale incursions in 1995 and 1997, involving an estimated 35,000 and 50,000 troops respectively, failed to dislodge PKK rebels from the Iraqi mountains.
    Seydo Badri, a Kurdish immigrant who came to Copenhagen from Syria in 1979, regularly watches Roj TV at a Kurdish community club in the Danish capital. He believes it is important that a Kurdish channel is broadcasting from outside of the Kurdistan region.
    "It's very important because it unites the Kurdish people and it's the only channel that broadcasts from Europe and it is the only channel that is not and because it's broadcasting from Europe it's not censured, it's very free. It's as free as a Danish channel," he says.
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