As a top executive of a large international company, you may be surprised to receive a letter from an ordinary Chinese citizen half a world away. I hope that this letter will attest to the great influence of Eutelsat. Your one decision can make a huge impact on our whole family.
I would like to tell you about my father. He lives alone in a small ranch in northern China. One day in June 2008, he turned on the TV, but the only Chinese-language station he had, NTDTV, was missing. Even today, it remains unavailable. This has been quite disappointing.
My father’s story with NTDTV is an interesting one. Before he installed the satellite receiver, I gave him some DVDs of NTDTV programs. He became intrigued. Perhaps it is difficult for people outside of China to imagine what it feels like for Mainland Chinese people to watch NTDTV for the first time. It is a mix of fear and excitement. In their minds, it is almost inconceivable for such “counter-revolutionary” programs to be shown on TV.
My father went to an electronics shop. The person working there also installed satellite dishes to supplement his income.
“Please install a dish for me,” My father handed him the coordinates of Eutelsat’s W5 satellite. The person said he would get a dish the next day and install it for my father.
However, the next day, he changed his mind and refused to install the dish. He would rather lose the business. Obviously he had found the station and watched it.
After a bit of negotiation, my father became impatient. “If the government wants to arrest someone, they can arrest me. You have nothing to fear!”
The person said, “I have a solution. There are three coordinates. I’ll set two for you, and you can find the third one on your own. It shouldn’t be hard to find it if you just keep tweaking.” Before we left, he whispered to me, “The station was pretty interesting.”
This was how my father began watching NTDTV. His courage helped him overcome the difficulties. In addition, although the person at the electronics shop was afraid of the Chinese Communist Party, he still had a sense of fairness and justice.
There were two other times when my father faced a threat of losing NTDTV. The first time, some people from the nearby city government came and tried to make people take down their satellite dishes. After much ado, they realized that there were too many people with satellite dishes to be controlled. The second time, the local broadcast and television bureau installed equipment to interfere with satellite signals, since satellite is a direct competition to cable TV, which the Bureau operates. Luckily my father’s dish is different from other people’s, so it did not really affect him.
But facing the signal cutoff, my father felt helpless.
Mr. Giuliano, I want to tell you what kind of influence the NTDTV had to my father, and my family
My father has suffered in the Culture Revolution. Before being isolated, detained, he is a loyal and fanatical follower of the communist regime, he had responded to the regime’s call to criticize and denounce several of his own teachers, and it became his burden since then. In recent years, facing the corruption in the government and the deterioration of the society, father lost his hope to this human life. He buried himself in alcohol and cigarette because of depression and desperation. The low quality liquor has done a lot of damage to his brain, he often forget things.
But the NTDTV brought my father hope.
Father watches the NTDTV program like a thirsty people drinks water, especially the series “Nine Commentaries,” he had repeatedly watched it several times. Soon after, he read a lot of Falun Gong books and quit the cigarette that he had for over 30 years just because of reading the books, he also drinks much less than before. His whole person has changed fundamentally.
My mother and brother live in a different place with my father, they both had investment in China’s stock market. Last years, after my father watched analysis program about China’s stock market on NTDTV, he called my mother and brother and asked them to sell the their stocks on hand as soon as possible, he also told other friends about this, and people who believes him avoided heavy loss.
I had been illegally sentenced to three and half years imprisonment because of my belief in Falun Gong, and I lost a good job, and my right to take care of my baby who was just one year old at that time. Out of his spite, my father, who used to favor me, did not visit me once or even wrote me a letter in those three and half years. But since he installed NTDTV receiver, he changed his mind completely, the sentiment between father and me not just recovered, but deepened.
In the past over one year period, my father also showed his brave and kind side, he had protected not just one Falun Gong practitioner, who were under the communist regime’s illegal arrest warrant.
Above all, is what your company has done to an average Chinese family, and this kind of influence was penetrating to the deeper level of that society, this influence was also pushing you and your company to the stage of the history, to become the envoy of justice, wisdom and kindness.
Because of above all, tens and thousands of people, who long for the truth just like me, ask you, please recover the NTDTV’s signal to Asia area immediately, and continue to broadcast in the future; not to be swung by any forces opposing democracy and human rights. In the very near future, you will witness its profound meaning. Believe me, that is the right choice, you will be blessed for that.
A Loyal NTDTV audience