Kurd TV license revoked

Channel broke ITC program code

By ERICH BOEHM

LONDON -- The U.K.'s Independent Television Commission is revoking the license of Med TV, the Kurdish satellite channel suspended last month for supporting acts of terrorism against Turkey (Daily Variety, March 24).

The TV regulator gave Med TV 21 days to mount an appeal, which was heard April 9. The service, however, was already under notice from last November that it would lose its license if it continued to breach the ITC's program code.

The ITC cited Feb. 16, 18, 19 and 20 as dates when Med TV broadcast statements from the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) or its sympathizers that were "incitement to crime."

ITC chairman Robin Biggam said: "Whatever sympathy there may be in the United Kingdom for the Kurdish people, it is not in the public interest to have any broadcaster use the U.K. as a platform for broadcasts which incite people to violence."