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Denmark: Kurdish ROJ TV appeal trial set
to start October 29th
23.8.2012
By Naila Bozo - Kurdish Rights
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August 23, 2012
COPENHAGEN, Denmark,— The Kurdish
television station ROJ TV was ruled guilty of acting
as a mouthpiece for the Kurdish rebel group PKK on
January 10th 2012 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The verdict was appealed and the new trial is set to
start on October 29th, 2012. The trial will consist
of forty court sessions of which the last one will
take place in the summer of 2013.
ROJ TV is owned by Mesopotamia Broadcast and was
launched on March 1, 2004. It broadcasts from
Denmark to the entire world in Kurdish and Zaza,
Persian, Arabic and Turkish but due to the verdict,
satellite providers dissolved their contracts with
ROJ TV because they did not want to be associated
with “terrorism”.
The Danish online newspaper arbejderen.dk writes
that the Danish court has allowed more of the ROJ TV
lawyer’s witnesses to be heard in court though it
has again dismissed witnesses like Leyla Zana,www.ekurd.net
three former Kurdish mayors including Osman Baydemir
and the head of the independent Danish TV- and Radio
Board, Christian Scherfig.
One of the new witnesses is Oluf Joergensen, an
expert on press law. Bjoern Elmquist, ROJ TV lawyer,
says Oluf Joergensen will be able to explain that
different cultures have different ways of conducting
interviews and that the reason why ROJ TV can come
across as a mouthpiece for PKK with its many
interviews with the rebel group is because “the
Turkish politicians boycott ROJ TV. There is not the
same debate as here [Denmark].”
Among the other witnesses are two Danish journalists
who conducted an interview with PKK in the
mountains.
“They can tell us what criteria PKK puts forward
before being interviewed. When TV2 (a Danish
television station) did a segment on PKK, there were
PKK flags in the background. When one evaluates the
case against ROJ TV, it is important to realise that
PKK has demands it wants to be fulfilled before it
agrees to an interview. These demands must not be
perceived as the television station doing terrorism
propaganda. Then TV2 would have to be charged with
terrorism too,” says Bjoern Elmquist to
arbejderen.dk.
Two other important witnesses are Haluk Gerger,
former president of Turkey’s biggest human rights
organisation, IHD, and Kerim Yildiz, lawyer and
director of the human rights organisation Kurdish
Human Rights Project (KHRP).
“They will shed light on the conditions of freedom
of speech in Turkey, especially the working
conditions for journalists. This will help in
showing how much ROJ TV means for democracy and the
opportunity to express oneself in Turkey,” says
Bjoern Elmquist.
Pola Rojan, who is a journalist and author of the
book “ERGENEKON – Turkey behind the front”, is also
going to witness at the ROJ TV appeal trial.
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