{"id":1640,"date":"2010-03-06T17:59:09","date_gmt":"2010-03-06T17:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.briangreene.com\/bhg\/2010\/raid-on-kurdish-roj-tv-in-belgium\/"},"modified":"2010-03-06T17:59:09","modified_gmt":"2010-03-06T17:59:09","slug":"raid-on-kurdish-roj-tv-in-belgium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/2010\/raid-on-kurdish-roj-tv-in-belgium\/","title":{"rendered":"Raid on Kurdish Roj TV in Belgium"},"content":{"rendered":"
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More than ten people were arrested in the course of a police raid in the Roj television studios on Thursday morning in Belgium. The police organized simultaneous raids at 25 places all over Belgium which are supposed to be connected to the PKK.<\/span><\/h2>\n

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Brussels – B\u0130A News Center<\/a><\/div>\n
05 March 2010, Friday<\/a><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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A police raid was carried out at the Roj TV studios in Belgium on Thursday (4 March). Turkey has previously shown intensive efforts to silence the television channel broadcasting in Kurdish because of its connection to the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party(PKK)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The raid started in the morning. Until now, more than ten people have been arrested, among them Roj TV director\u00a0G\u00fcl\u015fen Emsiz<\/strong>, journalists\u00a0Burhan Erdem<\/strong>,\u00a0Devrim Ak\u00e7ada\u011f<\/strong>and\u00a0Murat Yaklav<\/strong>. As reported by F\u0131rat News Agency\u00a0(ANF)<\/strong>, employees were not allowed into the Roj studios and the search was still going on in the afternoon. A statement of the Federal Prosecution was expected for the evening.<\/p>\n

Up to 25 different places allegedly connected with the PKK were subject to police raids at the same time.<\/p>\n

Struggle in Europe<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Both the PKK's struggle with the military and publications regarding the Kurdish question seen as "propaganda" by the judiciary may be heavily fined in Turkey. While the Foreign Ministry tries to block television broadcasts via satellite, people appearing on those channels may face trials.<\/p>\n

As the result of Turkish initiatives, the broadcasting of Med TV and Medya TV was recently blocked in England and France.<\/p>\n

Roj TV started broadcasting in Denmark in 2004 and the Foreign Affairs Department applied for the cancellation of the broadcasting license. Former Land Forces CommanderYa\u015far B\u00fcy\u00fckan\u0131t<\/strong>\u00a0and then Deputy Chief of General Staff\u00a0\u0130lker Ba\u015fbu\u011f<\/strong>\u00a0had also said that the TV channel should be closed.<\/p>\n

In a joint press conference of Turkish Prime Minister\u00a0Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan<\/strong>\u00a0and former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh\u00a0Rasmussen<\/strong>, Erdo\u011fan wanted a journalist from Roj TV being removed from the hall. Erdo\u011fan left himself since the journalist was not excluded from the press conference. The topic was brought up again by Turkey when Rasmussen was to be appointed as Secretary General of NATO.<\/p>\n

Sanctions for speeches<\/strong><\/h2>\n

On the other hand a publication ban is difficult to impose in European countries where freedom of expression for non-violent contents is granted. The Denmark broadcasting authorities rejected the application to ban Roj TV because violence was not encouraged by the channel's broadcastings in their opinion. That led to a diplomatic crisis between the two countries.<\/p>\n

Several people faced trial for their speeches given on Roj TV at different times, notably Dicle ('Tigris') News Agency\u00a0(D\u0130HA)<\/strong>\u00a0representative in Van\u00a0S\u0131dd\u0131k G\u00fcler<\/strong>, mayor of the closed Democratic Society Party\u00a0(DTP)<\/strong>\u00a0H\u00fcseyin Kalkan<\/strong>,\u00a0Mahmut Al\u0131nak<\/strong>, Head of the Tunceli Bar Association\u00a0\u00d6zg\u00fcr Ula\u015f Kaplan<\/strong>, Labour Party\u00a0(EMEP)<\/strong>\u00a0Provincial Chair\u00a0H\u00fcseyin Tun\u00e7<\/strong>\u00a0and Diyarbak\u0131r Human Rights Association\u00a0(\u0130HD)<\/strong>\u00a0Branch President\u00a0Selahattin Demirba\u015f<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, 53 DTP mayors stood trial for a letter written to Rasmussen against the closure of Roj TV.<\/p>\n

Cumhuriyet newspaper laid off writer\u00a0Erdo\u011fan Ayd\u0131n<\/strong>\u00a0because he had given a speech on Roj TV.<\/p>\n

Belgium imposed a \u20ac 4 million tax fine on the Kurdish television channel last year. A couple of days ago, the German Federal Administrative Court transferred the Roj TV file to the European Court of Justice due to alleged "propaganda for the PKK". The TV channel is allowed to continue broadcasting until the decision of the European court. (E\u00dc\/VK)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Posted via email<\/a> from web lab<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than ten people were arrested in the course of a police raid in the Roj television studios on Thursday morning in Belgium. The police organized simultaneous raids at 25 places all over Belgium which are supposed to be connected to the PKK. Brussels – B\u0130A News Center 05 March 2010, Friday A police raid… Continue reading Raid on Kurdish Roj TV in Belgium<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1640\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briangreene.com\/bhg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}