Website: Rapid TV News


The satellite transmission of Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) on Hot Bird 8 (13° East) has been jammed again. According to information obtained by the broadcaster, the interference – like the one in December 2009 – is most likely coming from Iran.

In a letter to the Iranian Embassy in Germany, DW’s general director Erik Bettermann strongly objected to the “direct interference in the reception possibilities of international information offerings”.

He went on to say that the repeated limitation of freedom of opinion and freedom of speech by the Iranian administration was “no longer acceptable”.

Bettermann pointed out that not only the television signal has been jammed, but that DW’s radio services and internet offerings have been censored by Iran as well.

According to DW, its satellite transmissions have been selectively jammed since the afternoon of February 10, saying that the signal, which is broadcast using Hot Bird 8 to cover Europe and bordering regions including Iran, was available for a few hours overnight, but was once again jammed on the morning of February 11.

Hot Bird 8 is also used to feed DW’s signal to Nilesat (7° West) and to the provider of DW’s live-stream on its website www.dw-world.de – both of which were consequently affected by the interference. The DW-TV Arabia broadcast has in the meantime been restored using a different Hot Bird transponder.

DW also experienced interference on December 7-8, 2009 on its Hot Bird transponder. The broadcaster says that, according to information provided by satellite operator Eutelsat, the source of the interference could be clearly localized and identified: the jamming signal came from Iran.