Satellite operator shuts down Tiger broadcasts: Sri Lanka

[BGonaSTICK]

The US-based Intelsat has shut down the radio and television broadcasts of Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels, the Sri Lankan government said in a statement today. Intelsat, the world’s largest commercial satellite communications provider, has told Colombo’s mission in Washington that the service of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was shut down over the weekend.

“Intelsat has terminated the ‘unauthorised’ use of one of its satellites, Intelsat12, by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for its TV and radio transmissions to Europe and Asia,” the government statement said. There was no immediate word from the Tamil Tigers who last week insisted that they were not using the satellite illegally to broadcast overseas.

A spokesman for Intelsat told AFP in Washington earlier this month that the firm was pursuing avenues to terminate what it said was the “illegal” use of one its satellites by the LTTE. The LTTE is designated as a foreign terrorist organisation in the United States.

In March 2005, the Tigers announced they were using Europe Star 1 satellite, which has since been re-named Intelsat 12, or IS-12, to uplink their television programmes from a secret location in northern Sri Lanka and broadcast to parts of Asia. It is not clear whether the Tigers accessed the satellite service through a proxy or on their own. The rebels have declined to discuss their arrangement with the service provider, but insisted they had not done anything illegal.

Source: AFP