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'We won't be shut down' says head of Kurdish Roj TV
Copenhagen (AFP) April 6, 2009 The head of the Danish-based Kurdish television station Roj TV, which Turkey is pressing Denmark to close down, insisted Monday that Ankara would not get its way. "We won't be shut down because of Turkey's demands, it's not Turkey that decides in Denmark," the head of Roj TV, Yilmaz Imdat, told AFP. Turkey had at the weekend initially opposed the appointment of Denmark's Anders Fogh Rasmussen as NATO's secretary general because Copenhagen has refused to act on Ankara's request to close the station. Ankara considers the station the mouthpiece of the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Turkish media reports said Ankara only agreed to Rasmussen's nomination after receiving assurances from him that the station would soon be closed. Speaking Monday in Istanbul however, Rasmussen made no announcement concerning Roj TV and instead defended anti-censorship principles. Imdat denied meanwhile that the station, which broadcasts out of Denmark but has its main offices in Belgium, has any links to PKK. "We have nothing to do with them, those are accusations from the Turkish side." "We live in democratic countries that respect freedom of expression and freedom of the press. You can't close a television or radio station because you don't like them, like Turkey does," he said. Roj TV has an annual budget of around 30 to 35 million kroner (four to five million euros, five to six million dollars), financed "by the Kurdish people and Kurdish communities and companies abroad," Imdat said. It airs news, culture, educational and children's programmes, he added. The television station has held a broadcasting license in Denmark since December 2003. Turkish authorities have filed three complaints against the station in Denmark, accusing it of "openly contributing to the terrorist organisation PKK's goals," but the Danish Radio and Television Board has cleared the station on each occasion, most recently in April 2008. A police inquiry was also opened in 2005 and is still ongoing, a Danish prosecutor told AFP. "It is an ongoing investigation so we're not in a position to say anything about where the investigation is going," prosecutor Liselott Nilas said. Asked whether police had come under any political pressure to step up the investigation following the Turkish reports of Rasmussen's concessions, Nilas was emphatic. "No. Clearly the answer is no. The investigation is up to us, it is up to us to reach a decision," she said, Roj TV employs about 100 people in Belgium and four people in Copenhagen. Share This Article With Planet Earth
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