Park Interview

It may not come as a surprise to learn that the Iranian government invests heavily in internet filtering, mobile-communication restrictions and jamming of international satellite broadcasts to control and manipulate the Iranian people.
What may be surprising is that European companies, particularly satellite providers, continue to provide services to Tehran despite its comprehensive assault on free expression and free access to information. Iran leads the world in illegal jamming of international satellite broadcasts, but it is a prolific user of international broadcasting platforms for its own programming. European satellite companies like Eutelsat, Intelsat and Arqiva provide extensive services to the Iranian state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), including for domestic Iranian radio and television broadcasts, and for Iran's growing list of foreign-language channels, like the English-language PressTV and the Arabic Al-Alam.

But Eutelsat also hosts many of the stations whose programming Tehran jams. It has not stopped carrying IRIB channels on its satellites, which are facilitated through Arqiva, even though the Iranian government is effectively destroying the products of its other clients.
Over the past two years, during which Iran increased its jamming of Persian-language broadcasts from abroad, Eutelsat and Arqiva have done little to hold the Iranian government accountable. Either company could have contractually required Iran to stop its jamming, which is politically motivated censorship, or refused to carry IRIB. Instead Eutelsat's response was to discontinue broadcasting BBC Persian and VOA Persian on the most accessible and popular satellite, Hotbird6, and to move them to less accessible satellites.

Providing continuous service to the IRIB as long as extensive jamming of Persian-language media is taking place is essentially a gift to the Iranian government from European satellite companies.