Protest to Libya after satellites jammed

• David Hencke and Owen Gibson
• The Guardian, Saturday 3 December 2005
• Article history

British and US diplomats have protested to the Libyan government after two international satellites were illegally jammed, knocking off air dozens of TV and radio stations serving Britain and Europe and disrupting American diplomatic, military and FBI communications.

Among stations hit were digital broadcasts by Five, BBC World, CNN International, US sports channels, cable TV networks and 23 radio stations. According to an email sent by one of the satellite owners, Loral Skynet, the US state department said it "would take it into their own hands" unless the interference stopped.

Last night the Foreign Office confirmed it had raised the issue in talks between the British embassy in Tripoli and the Libyan government.

Ofcom, the telecoms regulator, said it was considering taking a complaint to the International Telecoms Union.

The jamming started on September 19 after the launch in London of a small British and Arab-owned commercial radio station broadcasting on human rights and freedom of speech issues to Libya.

Ten minutes after the station - initially known as Sout Libya - went on air a transponder carrying the station was jammed for 50 minutes along with other stations. The jamming stopped when Sout Libya stopped broadcasting.

The station relaunched as Sowt Alamel, this time through a new satellite called Telstar 12. As a precaution, the broadcasts were sent to the US first, and then beamed up to Telstar, making it impossible for anybody to jam it, except from America.

Yet the moment it went on air, the jamming started again, knocking out the other stations without affecting Sowt Alamel.

An anonymous email sent to a company which helped the station said: "We can tell you we know the reason for these problems, it is the presence of the so called 'ALAMAL' radio Audio channel on your satellite. This channel broadcasts terrorist propaganda, intended to spread terrorist ideas amongst the listeners mindes [sic]."

The station has now voluntarily agreed to suspend its service. Its director, Jalal Elgiathi, said: "Our radio station had commercial advertising and altogether we have lost £250,000."

Last night 10 parliamentary questions were tabled by Andrew Mackinlay, Labour MP for Thurrock and a member of the Commons foreign affairs committee. "We need a full explanation of what has happened and whether Britain has insisted as part of its trade talks with the Libyans that it respected international law."

Industry sources confirmed that Five had lost its signal from the satellite, but said that the situation had been "quite quickly resolved". Other broadcasters were unaware their channels were affected. A BBC World spokeswoman said: "We're consulting with our cable and satellite partners in the region to clarify the situation."