The European Union has put pressure on Iran to cease its practice of jamming satellite broadcast transmissions from international operators.
Channels on Eutelsat and Nilesat satellites have been deliberately blocked by the Iranian authorities following…
The European Union has put pressure on Iran to cease its practice of jamming satellite broadcast transmissions from international operators.
Channels on Eutelsat and Nilesat satellites have been deliberately blocked by the Iranian authorities following the eruption in anti-government protests across the Islamic Republic last year.
Jamming has been an intermittent problem with broadcasts over Iran, and has increased since December.
It was taken to new levels on February 11, the 31st anniversary of the Iranian Revolution that swept Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his fundamentalist regime to power, when more than 70 radio and television stations broadcast from a Eutelsat spacecraft into Iran were disrupted.
This is illegal under the regulations of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), of which Iran is a member. However, the ITU has possesses no means of ordering or enforcing sanctions against the Iranian government.
In a joint statement, the 27 foreign ministers of the European Union said: “The EU is determined to pursue these issues and to act with a view to put an end to this unacceptable situation.”
It is not yet clear what can be done to dissuade the nefarious Iranians from their jamming. One option would be to threaten to remove all Iranian programming from the Eutelsat satellite and any other European company that covers the country.
While the Eutelsat situation has been well publicised, its regional partner Nilesat has also fallen foul of signal interference.
At the Satellite 2010 conference in Washington DC, Nilesat Chief Engineer Salah Hamza said that the company was suffering from sustained jamming “over a certain area.”