I have worked at MED TV ö a Kurdish language satellite channel ö since November and I am still reeling from the experience. For me it all started some three years ago while I was teaching at the City of Liverpool Community College when a guy phoned up and asked if there were still places on the Foundation Course in Media Studies. I soon became aware that he urgently wanted to get on the course. During the conversation I also found out that he had refugee status and was born in Turkey. When I asked "So you are Turkish" the reply was short, sharp, polite, "No I am a Kurd". Hasan joined the course and became a friend more than a student. In conversation with Hasan he revealed information about Kurdistan and the war raging in the Zagros mountains. The ethnic cleansing in the villages. The story of the "Anfal" brought down upon the Kurds by Saddam Hussein of which the massacre of 5000 people killed in one day at Halebja was only one episode in a chilling catalogue of systematic genocide.

On a personal level Hasan told me of the 6 months he had spent in prison for writing a poem in Kurmanc” ö one of the Kurdish dialects repressed in an attempt to deny the Kurds their cultural identity. Hasan had a friend with two sisters in jail in Istanbul charged with membership to the PKK. The PKK, otherwise known as the Kurdish Workers Party, was formed when a group of 6 young left wing students sat under a tree and planned an end to the repression of the Kurdish and Turkish people by a Fascist regime. Today, PKK numbers run into millions and the organisation is headed by Abdullah …calan ö one of the original 6 students. …calan reverently known as 'Apo', which means uncle, is seen by many as the key figure in the struggle of the Kurdish people and the Turkish left.

The reason Hasan was so desperate to gain a place on a Media Studies course in pursuit of a place at University; a new satellite television channel had hit the airwaves called MED TV. MED is still growing and on the 16th of May we will celebrate our third anniversary. Funded by donations from an estimated base of 35 million Kurds world-wide, channelled through the Kurdish Foundation Trust, MED will soon broadcast 24 hours a day under license from the ITC.

Some of our critics scathingly call us the "Music Channel" because of the great release of music, poetry and literature which radiates from the screen following years of repression of Kurdish culture and the Kurmanc”, Sorani and Dimili dialects. The station also allows the Assyrian community its own programming which testifies to the democratic and socialistic nature of the station. Although we are licensed by the ITC, this does not stop certain parties trying to jam our signal. We have been reliably informed by our satellite provider that the jamming signal emanates from Turkey. It is no coincidence that two of the worst cases of interference were during open debates within which Abdullah …calan addressed the Kurdish people.

So how did I end up here at MED's studios just outside Brussels? I attempted to travel to Diyarbakir last September with a friend Paul Delahunty as part of the Musa Anter Peace Train, along with many politicians and human rights activists, with the intention of attending a cultural festival. We did not reach the Kurdish capital, where an estimated one million Kurdish people had gathered. We were turned back by Turkish tanks and soldiers outside Severik some 50 kilometres short of our destination. The European politicians and dignitaries were quietly deported and we ordinary folk were beaten and harassed all the way back to Istanbul. Of course the worst treatment ö broken arms,arrests, etc., ö was reserved for our Kurdish friends. I was afraid and terrorised, and the experience brought the truth of the situation home to me. The political complexion of the Turkish government and the Turkey's human rights record are abysmal by the standards of any civilised human being. Turkey boasts the second biggest army in NATO and is fully supported by the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel in its oppression of the Kurdish people.

After this experience, I left my teaching job in Liverpool and moved to Brussels to become Training and Education Advisor for MED TV. The hardworking news-room staff consist of seasoned Kurdish and Turkish leftwing print journalists who have mainly taught themselves television and now, very professionally, pump out the news in eight different languages. On average we work a 12 to 16 hour shift and subsist on a diet of Marlboro and sweet black tea. No division of labour here, if there is a job to be done the closest to the action and most willing fills the breach. So I await the arrival of my friend Hasan who will shortly finish his university course in London and will hopefully find his place withinthe MED family. MED TV is a unique venture, an essential symbol of unity for the Kurdish people.

For further information please visit thefollowing web sites and articles:

[http://www.ib.be./med/]
[http://www.kurdistan.org/]
[http://www.khrp.org]
[http://www.oneworldonline.com]

"Television Nation", WIRED March 97.
"Musa Anter Peace Train", VARIANT Autumn 97

Joseph Cooper [cooperjoe@hotmail.com]