ROJ TV SHINE
By Kameel Ahmady
KurdishMedia, UK
Oct 16 2006
Recent political events along with turkeys negotiation and arms dealing
with US in relation to the "War on Terror" brought ROJTV (SUN-TV) once
again under pressure from turkey. While Turkey did not move forward
on its promises to EU in relation with improving human rights and
freedom of press it’s also rejected the offered unilateral ceasefire.
Now the Turkish Government has start it blocking viewers in some
parts of Turkey’s Kurdistan from watching the Kurdish television
station, ROJ TV and it continues to block signals in more areas main
land turkey. Such move represents another grave potential threat to
freedom speech and to expression of ethnic minority and identity in
Turkey and the world of free media.
Turkey has long campaigned to close down ROJ TV within EU and has
applied pressure on Demark, by whom the TV is licensed up to a point
that brought shame upon the Turkish Government when Danish PM Rasmussen
lectured Turkish PM Erdogan on press freedom after he failed to attend
a press conference in Copenhagen because ROJTV’s journalist was due
to attuned, saying that "Turkey has to realise that there are some
very specific conditions that need to be fulfilled if Turkey wants
to become an EU member one day, and one of them is respecting freedom
of press and freedom of expression."
There is been further embarrassment for turkey this week when Orhan
Pamuk, Turkey’s best-known novelist, who faced trial this year for
insulting his country, won the 2006 Nobel prize for literature from a
Swedish Academy, and add on to the pain and Turkey’s fury, the French
lower house of parliament approved a bill making it a crime to deny
the Armenian genocide. Pamuk was tried for insulting "Turkishness"
after telling a Swiss paper last year that one million Armenians had
died in Turkey during World War One and 30 000 Kurds had perished in
recent decades.
Such development can be seen as a test case for freedom of speech
in Turkey, but in another front turkey continues to ignore the basic
rights of the kurdish people and their rights of access to free media
and try to justify all actions as "war on Terror" While turkey’s
state terrorism in Kurdistan continues.
ROJTV for Kurds in Kurdistan and exile is not viewed as only news
source, for them the TV represent home and one free big family. The
same time as a forum for the expression of ideas about Kurdish
identity as well as a means to voice political debates and discussion,
its represents platforms for Kurdish movement, something that turkey
dose not allow the Kurds to practice in turkey. Such restrictions on
ROJTV will make many thousand homeless in Kurdistan, those who has
no voice of theirs in Kurdistan. ROJ has brought sense of identity
and belongings to Kurds and some may wonder how and why the free
world should turn a blind eye to very principle that they protect
and respect or their own citizens.
ROJTV has also played an important role in empowering younger
generations of Kurds throughout of the Diaspora and homeland, keeping
them in touch with each other and with their unique heritage. It has
supported the career development of many successful artists, musicians
and film-makers, and renewed a sense of pride in the contributions
of the Kurds to many world cultures around the world.
It provides them with positive role models and a means of education
regarding the positions and activities, to say nothing of keeping
people abreast of events in the Middle East.
Further, ROJTV has provided a means of contact and a voice for
those Kurds in places like Syria and the former Soviet Union as
well as Iranian and Iraqi Kurdistan, who would not otherwise have
any connection to Kurds in other regions, due to the isolation and
repression they suffer in their home communities. It is a sole means
of informing people about events taking place across borders, not
only the Kurds but those who participate in their struggle, and in
the general struggle for peaceful solutions to the issues facing the
Middle East generally.
The threat ROJTV is face with by looking at recent political climates
and significant damage to formation of identify and image and
meaning of freedom of media also by drawing a parallel between the
opportunities and constraints of human mobility and border controls
with those on political ideas but freedom of expression in the 21st
century’s world of digital media which dose not recognise border
controls and scope of a satellite broadcast, which cant be restricts
a specific geographical area, and that’s here Amir Hassanpour’s quote
nicely applies that "Kurdish TV gave sovereignty to the Kurds in the
sky" . So giving such factors, the Kurds and the free loving world
can say to Turkey that: your threat to block the Kurdish TV once
again would be a failure.
No matter how dark the night is, ROJ always starts shining the next day
Kameel Ahmady maintains a website at: