Centrist Party in The Norwegian Town of Skedsmo supports ROJ TV

Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen

Christiansborg

Prins Jørgens Gård 11

1218 Kønenhavn K


Declaration in support of the Kurds' satellite channel Roj-TV

As is well known the Turkish authorities exert a strong political pressure in order to bring to an end transmissions from the Kurdish satellite channel Roj-TV which transmits from Denmark. The two legal Kurdish parties in Turkey, HADEP and the Democratic Social Movement, refer to Roj-TV as the only voice of the Kurdish civil society in Turkey. Transmissions of cultural subjects and news in the Kurdish language is legal in a very restricted sense, the state TV-channel TRT transmits just 45 minutes per week in Kurdish-Kurmanji and transmissions in Kurdish from local TV companies are not allowed. We refer to Amnesty International which in a press communiqué of December 1st , 2005 mentions paragraph 301 of the Turkish Penal Code that prohibits utterances which offend "the Turkish, the Turkish State, and the institutions of the Turkish State".

Amnesty considers this paragraph to be a threat to the freedom of expression and the freedom of the press and fears that this paragraph may also gain validity in Europe. The Skedsmo section of the Senterpartiet (Centrist Party) therefore recommends that Roj-TV also in the time to come be given by the Danish authorities the possibility to carry ahead its work for giving the Kurdish minority in Turkey full political, legal, cultural, and social rights.

This appeal has also been submitted to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller.

With kind regards

Skedsmo Senterparti (Skedsmo section of the Centrist Party)

The Town Hall

2000 Lillestrøm

Norway