We would never stop broadcasting our programs; the West wants to mute our voice, but its measure greatly increases our audience, said Deputy President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) World Service in response to Europe’s top satellite service Eutelsat decision to take several Iranian satellite channels off one of its Hot Bird frequencies.
Satellite provider Eutelsat agreed with media services company Arqiva to block several Iranian state-controlled television and radio channels from broadcasting in Europe as of Monday because of "reinforced EU council sanctions," Eutelsat spokeswoman Vanessa O'Connor was quoted as saying.
On the other hand, Mohammad Sarafraz Deputy President of the IRIB World Service said Iran's channels have been blocked since their view is different from that of Western channels. Events in the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, such as Wall Street Movement in America, and people's protest against European capitalism, are the main reasons why our channels have been taken off the air, Mohammad Sarafraz added.
Contrary to their slogans, European Union does not respect freedom of speech, and spares no efforts to silence the voice of alternative media outlets, Sarafraz said.
Iranian news channels affected by the decision only aimed to break the West’s monopoly on news broadcast by reflecting the voice of the oppressed people to the world, Press TV said.
Answering the question: given the channels' cut off, what would be your decision, Deputy President of the IRIB World Service stated that we make our voices heard by the audience, we have the Internet and social networks so we are not worry about this.
Some sources have said that European satellite provider's move follows earlier protests by the satellite operator that Iran was deliberately jamming a number of the channels on its satellites, including BBC Persian, the Voice of America’s Persian service and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Radio Farda.