EU’s foreign policy minister on has denounced Iran’s “deliberate jamming” of TV and radio satellite broadcasts that deprive its citizens of access to free information, and called on Tehran to obey global telecommunications laws.  “Since 2009, repeated waves of jamming have affected the signals of European satellites in the Middle East,” the EU’s Catherine Ashton said. “Such jamming, whose origin has been traced to Iran in particular, are hammering the broadcast of international media on Iranian territory.”

Among the affected broadcasters were Britain’s BBC, France 24, Voice of America and Germany’s Deutsche Welle, Ashton said. She added that the jamming had intensified since mid-October and was obstructing more than 500 television channels and 200 radio channels.  Ashton, according to reports, called on Tehran to abide by its international obligations in the matter and to “cooperate in the detection and elimination of harmful interference”.

Iran responded by denouncing the double standard of certain Western countries, with foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast accusing the countries of recently jamming Iranian television broadcasts, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Last month, Paris-based satellite provider Eutelsat, Britain’s Arqiva and US-based Intelsat turned off Iran’s state television channels.  Last week the USA unveiled further sanctions against four Iranian individuals and five Iranian bodies, including the communications minister and the culture ministry, for censoring the media and the Internet.

Other posts by Chris Forrester:

1. Optimism under threat at SES
2. Rivada visits Terran Orbital’s manufacturing HQ
3. Avanti wins spectrum debt obligation case
4. SpaceX breaks records for re-use launchers
5. IRIS2 already in trouble?
6. Intelsat contemplates next steps
7. SpaceX: 2.7m customers and $180bn value
8. Boeing, Virgin Galactic in court battle
9. Jupiter-3 a changemaker

Categories: Blogs, Inside Satellite