UK War On Free Speech

Britain’s government-controlled broadcast regulatory body, Ofcom, has decided to ban Press TV’s broadcast in an effort to silence the alternative voice in the UK

Press TV
December 26, 2011

The move comes a year after a leaked US Embassy cable highlighted for the first time London and Washington’s concerted effort to block Press TV in Britain.

Many observers have noted that the British government’s campaign against Press TV has its roots in the channel’s extensive coverage of the multiple crises created by London’s domestic and foreign policies.

Press TV covered the 2011 Royal Wedding from a critical angle, which highlighted its extravagant costs while many Britons were suffering from great economic hardship. The channel also provided in-depth coverage of the widespread protests and the ensuing unrest that gripped Britain following the police killing of a black man in August.

Press TV also interviewed many critics of the stance adopted by the British government vis-à-vis the revolutions in the Muslim world.

London clearly sided with dictators and monarchs and even invited the king of Bahrain for official visits and provided his regime with military assistance. This, as Bahrain’s Saudi-backed forces were torturing and killing peaceful protesters.

Britain also signed a scandalous military deal with Saudi Arabia back in 2006 to sell state-of-the-art military equipment to one of the world’s biggest dictatorships.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

The British government with its Royal establishment has a long history of wars of aggression and support of monarchies and autocratic rulers all over the world.

In the Middle East, London together with Washington orchestrated Iran’s 1953 coup to bring the western-backed Shah of Iran back to power. Decades later the monarch was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution.

In Iraq, Britain joined the US invasion and occupation of the country that led to the killing of a million people.

Britain also followed the US into Afghanistan in 2001-a war that has yet to end despite strong opposition from the British public. A senior Afghan official recently told Press TV that the British military also played a significant role in the production and trafficking of narcotics in Afghanistan.

In Africa, Britain is still remembered as the brutal colonial power that crushed many local communities under the boots of its soldiers for decades. And today it is mulling direct military intervention in Somalia where people are already under intense pressure from natural disasters and U-S drone strikes.

In Asia, the Royal establishment killed as many people as it needed to set up its power base in the Indian Subcontinent among other regions.

Thousands of miles away in Latin America, London is still engaged in a potential military confrontation with Argentina over the Malvinas Islands three decades after fighting a deadly war with Buenos Aires over the UK-occupied archipelago.

The centuries of medieval-age aggression by British rulers have earned London global infamy.

The latest in a string of such UK practices is the Royal establishment’s war on free speech.

London has spared no effort in its two-year-long battle against Press TV. Its media tool, Ofcom, is now about to revoke the channel’s broadcast license, hoping this desperate measure will silence criticism.

But what the British government fails to grasp is that the truth cannot be concealed from the public, and those in the UK that want to hear Press TV’s alternative voice will inevitably find a way to watch the channel of their choice.

This article was posted: Monday, December 26, 2011 at 6:06 pm

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