Eutelsat, BBC complains of signal jamming in Middle East and Europe

Only days after Eutelsat reacted to signal jamming by halting Iranian broadcasts on its craft, the BBC has revealed that it is experiencing interference to transmissions in Europe and the Middle East, Rapid TV News reports.

Describing the actions by parties as yet unnamed as “deliberate” and “intermittent”, the corporation say that it and a number of other broadcasters, have experienced interference that has impacted services including the BBC World News and BBC Arabic television channels and BBC World Service radio services in English and Arabic.

In a statement, the BBC said: “Deliberate interference such as the jamming of transmissions is a blatant violation of international regulations concerning the use of satellites and we strongly condemn any practice designed to disrupt audiences’ free access to news and information.”

For its part, Eutelsat made an appeal on 3 October to international regulatory authorities to urgently intervene to put an end to repeated jamming of satellite signals by Iran following what it called deliberate interference to international networks, including BBC Persian, the Voice of America’s Persian service and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Radio Farda, that broadcast via Eutelsat satellites.

Speaking at ABU’s General Assembly in Seoul, the head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) Ezzatollah Zarghami has criticized the bans on Iranian TV and radio stations likening it to “cultural terrorism.” He called on international organizations, especially UNESCO, which do not have “deterrent laws for this type of cultural terrorism”, to adopt concrete laws to prevent such actions.