COPENHAGEN, Denmark – The ruling by Denmark’s Supreme Court to uphold the closure of Kurdish channel Roj TV is not backed by the entire parliament, with some MPs calling it a setback for free speech and others in favor of the decision.
The station, which has been broadcasting from Denmark since 2004, was convicted in 2012 of supporting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is banned in the European Union and United States, and whose leader is jailed in Turkey.
Denmark’s far-left Red-Green Alliance, Enhedslisten (EL), says the Supreme Court decision is “worrying.”
"It cannot be true that anti-terrorism legislation in a democratic country must mean that the press cannot provide information freely without fear of legal repercussions," EL’s legal spokesperson Pernille Skipper said in a news release.
She said that Denmark’s anti-terrorism law has been misused, first to impose heavy fines on the station and now to revoke its license. She accused the court of examining only a very small part of Roj TVs broadcasts.
”Therefore, it is worrying that the revoking of the license happens in the light of this background," she wrote.
But that is not the view of the entire parliament.
"Roj TV has promoted the PKK through its television coverage. It cannot be accepted and it is against the rules of the game in Denmark," said Conservative Party spokesman Tom Behnke.
The case against Roj TV is historic, because it is the first time that terrorism accusations have been brought against the media in any Scandinavian country.
Many Kurds are convinced that the closure is part of a Danish-Turkish conspiracy.
Documents on Wikileaks in November 2010 suggest that former Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen had an understanding with Ankara, to close down Roj TV in exchange for Turkish support for his bid to become NATO secretary general. Rasmussen has rejected the claim.
Last year the PKK’s jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan declared a peace deal with Ankara and ordered an end to a 30-year conflict for greater Kurdish rights. Until just over a decade ago, Turkey’s estimated 15 million Kurds were not allowed even to speak their own language in public.
The Conservative Party’s Behnke rejects that the court decision to close the channel is a part of a plot against Roj TV.
"The courts in Denmark are independent. A politician in Denmark cannot just close down a television station," Behnke said.
The Copenhagen City Court said in a 2012 verdict: "The court thinks that the television channel in a variety of programs unilaterally and indiscriminately had relayed the PKK's messages, including incitement to revolt and to join the organization.”
“The court has concluded that there is a one-sided coverage where PKK leaders talk, without making an attempt to balance the broadcasts,” it added.
Shortly after, Denmark’s largest bank blocked the station's accounts, and European service provider Eutelsat refused to carry its broadcasts any longer.
The national TV and radio board in Denmark, which has been investigating allegations that Roj TV is a PKK mouthpiece, agrees that the channel’s broadcasts are one-sided. But not that it has incited hatred.
"The station is very propaganda-like in its coverage and broadcasts, but without directly encouraging hatred. Although Roj TV is unilateral in it nature, it is not directly involved in incitement to hatred," chairman Christian Scherfig said in September 2012.
Last year, Denmark’s Eastern High Court revoked Roj TV's broadcasting license and sentenced it to a fine of 10 million Danish krones (about 1.4 million euros), forcing the channel to declare bankruptcy after losing a lengthy legal battle.
Roj TV's lawyer, Bjorn Elmquist, now recommends that his clients take their case to the European Court of Human Rights.
