The Crimean Tatar ATR TV channel was shut down on April 1 because it did not get a license from the Russian telecommunications regulator to continue broadcasting on the annexed peninsula.
The only Crimean Tatar-language TV channel in the world, ATR submitted its papers at least three times to be able to continue its work.
However, Russian authorities turned the application down every time, pointing out new mistakes. While ATR was waiting for their license, Russian Prime Minister Sergei Aksionov accused the management of “inflating the conflict.”
“I believe they intentionally made the mistakes in their papers, so Roskomnadzor (the regulator) can not issue the documents,” Aksionov was quoted as saying on March 24.
Lilya Budzhurova, deputy head for information policy at ATR channel, says the Crimean authorities tried to accuse them “of committing suicide.”
During the last hours on air, the channel’s managers promised to their audience that they would find a way to resume the broadcasting.
“This ‘trick’ is unlikely to be successful,” Budzhurova said. “We have faced even more difficult situations. Our people survived (Joseph) Stalin’s deportation. We’ll survive this time again,” she said on air on March 31 before the channel was shut off.
Now the channel’s lawyers are busy to find out the possible way out of the situation. One of the options is to continue its work over the internet, according to Budzhurova. Meanwhile, President Petro Poroshenko asked his ministry for information policy “to create conditions” for ATR’s work on mainland Ukraine, he wrote in his Twitter.
Earlier Budzhurova told the Kyiv Post that the channel’s management would file a lawsuit against the Russian regulator as they want to prove the ATR is not a “seditious” channel.
For many of Crimean Tatars the shutdown of the ATR, along with Meydan FM station and children’s entertainment channel Lale, is a bad sign. They also fear renewal of persecution.
“For more than 50 years we couldn’t speak in our native language outside our homes,” Refat Chubarov, the leader of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, said. “They are merely killing us now with the shutdown of the ATR,” he adds. Chubarov believes the ATR was a tool to revive the Crimean Tatar language and culture.
Dunja Mijatović, the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe representative on Freedom of the Media, voiced concerns that Crimean Tatar media outlets are having their registration rejected for “subjective reasons.”
“This is yet another proof that the politically selective censorship of free and independent voices in Crimea is continuing,” Mijatović said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached at [email protected]
