Updated July 5
On June 16, 2008, Eutelsat Communications abruptly shut down New Tang Dynasty Television's (NTDTV) broadcast over Mainland China via its W5 satellite. The reason it provided was an "anomaly in the power subsystem" of the satellite.
Since that time, NTDTV has repeatedly requested specific information from Eutelsat in an attempt to resume its broadcast. However, Eutelsat has not provided any details, citing its ongoing investigation as a reason.
The last time Eutelsat attempted to prevent NTDTV from broadcasting to China, leading parliamentarians from the European Union and several countries, along with Reporters without Borders and other media watchdog organizations, concluded that Mr. Beretta was sacrificing the rights of NTDTV and its viewers to do business with the Chinese Communist regime.
NTDTV has, out of good faith,, given Eutelsat ample time and space to resolve the current crisis and provide an explanation. However, Eutelsat has failed to restore NTDTV's service and consistently evaded addressing NTDTV's questions such as: - Why Mr. Berretta choose to shutdown NTDTV? - Why Mr. Berretta does not treat NTDTV, a good standing customer for four years, as Eutelsat would normally do? - What has Mr. Berretta done to find a way to resume NTDTV's signal?
In the face of such stonewalling, it is Mr. Berretta's burden to show there is no more to the shutting down of NTDTV than a power anomaly, it is Mr. Berretta's burden to show if Eutelsat intends to resume NTDTV's broadcast.
Since the beginning of this year, numerous calamities have befallen China. The incompetence and corruption of the Chinese Communist regime has added dramatically to the severity of the damages, causing the needless death and suffering of multitudes of innocent people. Just as it suppressed the reporting of the SARS epidemic to its own people in 2003, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is covering up news about the large number of school children deaths due to the collapse of shoddily constructed school buildings during the earthquake. Without an effective means to broadcast such news to the Chinese people, these man-made disasters will be allowed to continue unchecked, and they will continue to cost countless lives.
Established in 2004, NTDTV is the only Chinese language media outlet broadcasting news into Mainland China that is not censored by the Chinese authority. Following the principles of social justice and truthful reporting, NTDTV acts as a voice for all the persecuted groups in China, including people of faith and various rights activists. To stop the exposure of the its human rights abuses, the CCP is resorting to various forms of coercion through political and monetary means to eliminate NTDTV's broadcast. NTDTV strongly deplores CCP's exploitation of Chinese people's tax dollars to silence the voice of truth.
During its application to host this year's Olympics, the CCP promised to expand press freedom in China; yet today it has shut down all voices of dissent. This is a manifestation of the CCP's own insecurity regarding its lack of legitimacy. As history has repeatedly shown, a political regime predicated on suppression cannot last.
As Eutelsat shuts down the only window of free information for the vast Chinese populace, it once more appears to be using the termination of NTDTV's broadcasts to form a profitable relationship with the CCP. We ask Eutelsat to consider the long-term potential of such a dubious bargain.
In 2005, strong grassroots support played a pivotal role in convincing Eutelsat to renew its contract with NTDTV. People in China desire to access real news, not Communist propaganda. Therefore, the continued broadcast of NTDTV's signal is serving a vital public interest. We again seek support from all freedom-loving people in the world to call on Eutelsat to resume the broadcast of NTDTV into China.
Finally, we ask Eutelsat to respect the principles of freedom of the press, follow relevant International and European regulations and its own constitution, and immediately resume the broadcast of NTDTV over China.
