NTDTV Updated Statement Regarding Eutelsat Incident

On July 1, 2008, NTDTV (New Tang Dynasty TV), an independent Chinese media, published a statement regarding the failure of a transponder for sending NTDTV broadcast signals to China, on a satellite operated by Eutelsat Communications. The statement pointed out that since the Eutelsat transmissions ceased on June 16, 2008, the only explanation provided has been, "power supply abnormality". The company has failed to provide any official explanation to NTDTV for the outage.

There is reason to doubt the explanation given to NTDTV about this incident. Eutelsat board chairman and CEO Mr. Giuliano Berretta explained the outage as a "technical problem," but refused to explain why all transponders to Asia failed, except the one carrying the Voice of America signal. He also failed to explain why the NTDTV signal could not be broadcast on an alternate transponder. In 2005, Mr. Berretta initially refused to renew the contract with NTDTV after conducting business with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The nature and timing of this incident suggests similar CCP coercion behind the scenes.

The statement said that the CCP tries its best to block factual information from reaching the Chinese people, in order to sustain its dictatorship. The CCP is most fearful of NTDTV programming - as it is the only Chinese programming not censored by the regime. NTDTV strongly condemns the CCP for using Chinese people's taxes to coerce Eutelsat into blocking factual information that the Chinese people sincerely need. NTDTV also requests that Eutelsat not trade integrity and ethics for financial benefits.

In 2005, when Eutelsat tried to refuse renewal of their contract with NTDTV, voices of justice from western people and governments played a vitally important role. NTDTV now calls on international society to take note of this incident, and continue supporting and helping NTDTV to resume broadcasting as soon as possible.