Why West wants to throttle Press TV

Hamid Reza Emadi

It was an interesting year on Press TV’s calendar. The channel was taken off the air in Europe, Asia and South America. If you think this happened in the censorship era of the 1950s think again; it all took place in 2012.

The attack on the news channel was so belligerent that it was reasonable to think that even if the world survived the 2012 ‘end of the world’ scare, Press TV wouldn’t. It suffices to say that the scale and intensity of the war on the increasingly popular channel has been unprecedented in international television history.

But what does Press TV say that’s causing so much anger in Western capitals, and where does the violation of Press TV’s right to free expression leave the West’s claims of protecting media? And will the increasing pressure on Press TV force the channel to stop telling the truth to gain the West’s permission to stay on a little longer?

Iran’s 24/7 English-language international news channel hit the airwaves in 2007. Press TV appeared on TV screens around the world to cover the story - with a focus on topics that the ‘free’ world’s mainstream media tends not to cover. From revealing the real faces of democracy-looking dictatorships in Europe to divulging covert ties between the West and terror rings in Syria and highlighting the plight of women and children in war-torn countries, Press TV has sought to be a voice for the voiceless.

Press TV has established a distinctive discourse that communicates the message directly to the audience like no other. It has raised many fundamental questions and made sure that they remain in the minds of its audience: Why has al-Qaeda, as a questionably Islamist group, never attacked or done anything against the interests of Israel?

Why do the US and Britain fight alongside the same militant extremists in Syria that they drove out of Iraq and Afghanistan in their so-called war on terror? Why do the US and other western governments fully support the world’s worst violators of human rights and social and political freedoms such as the dictatorial monarchies of Qatar and Saudi Arabia? Why does the US not want the waves of democracy to also reach the shores of Saudi Arabia, a hereditary monarchy which does not even hold elections? Why do western governments provide weapons to Israel then sit and watch as it bombs and kills Palestinian women and children in Gaza? Why do western societies insult Muslims’ religious sentiments? Why do western governments send their men and women in uniform to Muslim countries to kill and be killed? Why are they so power-hungry and blood-thirsty?

It goes without saying that Press TV has posed a serious challenge to those who have controlled the flow of information via their mainstream media ever since the first television program was aired. And the West has realized the extent of this challenge and has decided that it needs to be contained. And just like that, satellite companies are ordered to take Press TV off the air in a desperate attempt to stop the message reaching its global audience.

Back in 2010, WikiLeaks cables revealed that the US and Britain were exploring ways to limit the operations of Press TV. In January 2012, their efforts paid off and Press TV was taken off the air in Britain. The channel had given extensive coverage to the unrest that rocked Britain in 2011 and the violent police crackdown on peaceful protests. It also raised the point of the costly extravagance of the ‘Royal wedding’ that British tax-payers were forced to pay for. Press TV has focused on the question as to why Britain - a self-described democracy-loving country that has invaded 90 percent of world’s nations in its self-proclaimed effort to promote democratic values - is itself a hereditary monarchy in which the unelected queen has the final say in all the top matters of state. At least on one occasion Press TV was asked by the Royal family to leave the queen alone, and as soon as the channel refused to stop informing the British public about the lies they were being told by the likes of the BBC, it was taken off the air for “having wrongfully filled an application form” several years back!

Three months after Ofcom, the British government’s tool to control the media, pulled the plug on Press TV, Germany’s media regulatory body, BLM, took Press TV off the air over what it called lack of the ‘required’ license. Press TV took the issue to the German courts and won the case on two separate occasions. It returned to the airwaves shortly before being taken down again after BLM obtained a federal court ruling that could not be appealed. Press TV had earlier been warned not to work on sensitive issues in Germany. However, the channel continued to cover Germany’s illegal participation in the Afghan war, particularly its killing of 90 civilians in an airstrike in northern Afghanistan. It also focused on the massively-censored story of a pregnant Muslim woman stabbed to death inside a German courtroom in the presence of a judge.

Next came France’s Eutelsat, which owns Hotbird and provides satellite services to thousands of channels around the world. It took Press TV and other Iranian channels off the air under the pretext of EU sanctions on Iranian broadcasting. It also advised other European satellite companies to cut their ties with Press TV. Subsequently, Spain’s Hispasat banned Press TV. It also stopped transmission of Iran’s Spanish language satellite television Hispan TV, which is a formally registered media company in Spain. Hispasat, which is partly owned by Eutelsat, repeated the sanctions story to justify the ban. I contacted Michael Mann, chief spokesperson of EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, to get an explanation.

“The EU's restrictive measures against Iran, which focus on finance, energy, trade and transport, do not contain elements which could have forced as such Eutelsat to take this step,” Mr. Mann wrote to me, adding that the same applies to Hispasat. “EU sanctions do not require these TV channels to be taken off the air.”

So, if the EU isn’t behind the all-out war against Press TV, then who is? As the channel investigated further, it learned that Eutelsat’s CEO is a French-Israeli with strong links to Europe’s Zionist lobbies. As the Spanish satellite group Hispasat pulled the plug on Press TV and Hispan TV at 2300 GMT of December 20, 2012, the pro-Israeli lobby group, American Jewish Committee, AJC, issued the following celebratory statement on its official website.

“This is an important development in the worldwide effort to contain the defiant regime in Tehran, one we have been watching carefully for months and discussing with our friends in Spain,” said AJC Executive Director David Harris. “Hispasat did the right thing,” Harris added.

But why are Israelis so angry with Press TV that it would cause them to openly advocate a ban on the channel and, as Harris says, discuss it for months with their European partners? The answer lies in the fact that Press TV was the only international news channel with four correspondents on the ground in Gaza when Israel launched its deadly war on the besieged Palestinian coastal strip at the turn of 2008-2009. The channel provided 22 consecutive days of round-the -clock live coverage of Israeli war crimes. When Israel attacked Gaza again in 2012, Press TV was among the first to provide full rolling coverage of the offensive. Moreover, Press TV has been very active in bringing to light the crimes Israelis have committed against Palestinians over the past six decades. It’s also the only English-speaking international news channel to focus on the issue of the establishment of a Palestinian state on the whole of Palestine. The Israelis have plenty of reasons to act against Press TV and so do the leaders of Britain, Germany, France and Spain as well as the United States government which has recently imposed sanctions on Iranian media.

They do not want Press TV to enlighten television viewers around the world. But what they just don’t seem to get is that their all-out war on Press TV only serves to show how successful the channel has been. And since it is literally impossible to silence a media outlet in the information age, the channel will continue to do what it's been doing over the years despite the bumps and bruises.
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Hamid Reza Emadi is a Tehran-based journalist and political commentator. He worked as a newspaper journalist for ten years before joining broadcast media in 2006. He has appeared in numerous TV programs talking about media freedoms, US-sponsored sanctions against the Iranian nation, Iran’s nuclear file and geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.
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Article published here: PressTV
URL: http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/2013/01/10/why-west-wants-to-throttle