Kurdish broadcaster declares bankruptcy

COPENHAGEN - Doğan News Agency

Kurdish broadcaster Roj TV has declared bankruptcy, months after a Danish court fined the channel 5 million kroner (670,000 euros) for “promoting terrorism” in the years between 2007 and 2010.

Kurdish broadcaster Roj TV has declared bankruptcy, months after a Danish court fined the channel 5 million kroner (670,000 euros) for “promoting terrorism” in the years between 2007 and 2010.

Roj officials said the fine was too much for Mesopotamia Broadcast, which controls Roj TV, MMC and Nûçe TV, to pay up, ultimately prompting the decision to file for bankruptcy when the court refused to wait for a higher court’s decision on the matter.

Roj TV A/S and Mesopotamia Broadcast, the two companies that own Roj TV, were each fined 5 million kroner (670,000 euros) for promoting terrorism, despite company representatives denying the accusations.

Last September, police arrested eight people on suspicions of financing the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The court said that between February 2008 and September 2010, the TV channel had supported terrorism by broadcasting PKK messages and that it had accepted money from the group.

A joint press conference between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Danish counterpart, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, was canceled to avoid a crisis stemming from Roj TV’s presence at a March 20 meeting when Erdoğan paid a visit to the Danish capital.

In 2005, during a previous visit to Denmark, a press conference between Erdoğan and former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen was called off after Danish officials refused Erdoğan’s demand to have the Roj TV correspondent removed from the hall.