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U.S. Condemns Cuba for Jamming Satellite Signals to Iran

July 15, 2003
The Associated Press
Sandra Marquez

A U.S. government agency on Tuesday echoed what Los Angeles-based satellite television station providers who transmit news to Iran have been saying for days: Cuba appears to be jamming their signals into Iran, where pro-democracy protests have been raging.

While Cuban authorities have long jammed U.S. government programming to their own country just off the coast of Florida, blocking transmissions to a third country in a distant hemisphere would be unprecedented, said Kenneth Tomlinson, who oversees the Voice of America as chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

"This has ominous implications for the future of international satellite broadcasting," Tomlinson said by telephone from Washington, D.C.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors issued a resolution Tuesday calling on the State Department and Federal Communications Commission to lodge a formal protest with the Cuban government for "this unwarranted and wrongful interference."

A Cuban government spokesman in Havana did not return a call for comment from The Associated Press.

Iran's Islamic government has accused U.S.-based satellite stations of stoking unrest by providing unfiltered information into a country that does not otherwise have a free press.

Iran itself can't block the programming because the signals must be jammed over the Atlantic Ocean, where the satellites are positioned.

U.S. officials believe Iran contracted with Cuba to do the job this month, on the eve of the four-year anniversary of large-scale student protests, "to block the flow of news in a period of time when they obviously thought they were going to lose control of their own people," Tomlinson said.

He said an interference signal jamming the satellites has been tracked to a facility near Havana -- a claim based on information provided by the satellite service providers.

"This putting together networks to block international communication is wrong and I think in the long run will mark these states as outlaw states," Tomlinson said.

Azadi Television is one of four Los Angeles-based satellite television stations whose broadcasts into Iran were reduced to black static for days from July 6-13. The jamming continues on an intermittent basis.

Kayvan Abbassi, whose family opened the station six months ago, said operators have tried several times to avoid the jamming by changing their signal, but to no avail.

"The first time it took them five hours to jam it," said Abbassi, whose station's name means "freedom" in Farsi. "Yesterday, it took them minutes."

Another station, Pars Television, transmits to Iran on the same satellite as Azadi, but on a different transponder. As a result, Iranian viewers can still see its programs in some cities -- or at least hear the audio portion, said Reza Ansari, the station's marketing manager.

As a show of solidarity, Pars recently allowed Azadi to beam some of its programming on Pars' signal. Ansari said both stations share the goal of opposing the Iranian government.

"They don't want our programs to be watched by the Iranian people," Ansari said. "Everything we say is against the Iranian government and that is not good for them."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/07/15/state2159EDT0174.DTL

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