France

[FR] CSA Serves another Formal Notice on Eutelsat

IRIS 2005-3:1/18

Amélie Blocman

Légipresse

In continuation of the case of Al Manar TV (see IRIS 2005-1: 12), the CSA (Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel - audiovisual regulatory body) served formal notice on 10 February on the satellite operator Eutelsat to stop broadcasting the television service Sahar 1. The channel is edited by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting Company, which is established in Iran; it is not subject to any type of control by another European Union Member State and is broadcast by Eutelsat without being covered by any agreement with the CSA, in violation of Articles 33-1, 43-2 and 43-4 of the Act of 30 September 1986). In December and January the television service broadcast episodes of a series presenting firstly Israelis and Jews in a systematically demeaning fashion, and secondly the murder using methods verging on the barbaric act of a Jewish man who had the temerity to marry a non-Jewish woman. As the CSA emphasised in its formal notice, broadcasting this programme was all the more shocking in that it was actually an episode in the series broadcast on the Al Manar channel that had been at the origin of the proceedings the CSA's Chairman had brought before the Conseil d'État. The CSA also noted that a programme had been broadcast on 3 February which included ten minutes speaking time by Robert Faurisson, presented as a "French historian", who was able to expound the revisionist theories for which he had been convicted by the French courts without ever being contradicted.

The CSA, recalling that under Article 42 of the Act of 30 September 1986 it may serve formal notice on operators of satellite networks to abide by the obligations imposed on them by the texts of legislation and regulations and by the principles defined in Articles 1 and 3-1 of the Act (protection of human dignity and safeguarding of public order), notes that Eutelsat's broadcasting of the Sahar 1 channel is contrary to respect for human dignity in the programmes it broadcasts, in that these contain incitement to hatred and racial violence. Formal notice was therefore served on Eutelsat for it to cease broadcasting the channel within one month of the date of notification of the decision.