On April 1, the world’s only TV-channel broadcasting in the Crimean Tatar language ATR has been shut down. It would be possible to qualify this fact as a joke, but Federal Supervision Agency for Information Technologies and Communications (Roskomnadzor) that refused to accept application for reregistration of the TV-channel a couple of times, would hardly joke this way.
It is pointless to discuss reaction of society because of the shutdown of the TV-channel. The fact that ATR was liked not only in Crimea but also in mainland Ukraine is confirmed by thousands of tweets and posts in Facebook that appeared right after disconnection of the channel. They were written both by mere citizens of Ukraine, politicians and public figures. Having closed ATR, Russia touched the sorest subject for Crimean Tatars – their right for the national identity.
According to the deputy director of the human rights organization Amnesty International in Europe and Central Asia Denis Krivosheev, the shutdown of the Crimean Tatar media is “an obvious infringement on the freedom of speech, disguised as an administrative procedure and it is a clumsy attempt to suppress independent media, silence the inconsistent ones and intimidate the Crimean Tatar society.”
If any parallels were to be drawn, it would be possible to say that the government of the neighboring country dealt with its own but “undesirable” media the same way. For example, let us remember the epic shutdown of the TV channel Dozhd that presently broadcasts in the Internet at the expense of subscribers. Or dismissal of the senior editor of the news portal Lenta.ru Galina Timchenko after a warning from Roskomnadzor because of an interview with one of the Right Sector’s leaders .Online media Grani.ru, Ezh.ru, and Kasparov.ru also function “in downsized mode”. Access to them in the territory of Russia is possible with great difficulties.
The policy conducted by Russia in Crimea: the shutdown of the Crimean Tatar TV-channel ATR together with the children channel Lale, Meydan and Lider radio stations, the Avdet newspaper and the Yildyz journal, informational websites “15 minutes” and news agency QHA is very much alike to the policy conducted by the bolshevists in 1917 – 1918. Verbally they advocated the civil liberties, including the freedom of speech, gradually closing bourgeois periodicals. Undesirable for the bolshevists periodicals “that were making havoc by means of slanderous misapprehension of facts” had to be closed by virtue of “Decree on the Press”. According to the decree, 470 opposition newspapers were shutdown.
Position of the bolshevists was the same as the resent position of the Crimean “authorities”: “All the bans will be lifted when the soviet power takes over everywhere,” the decree of the authorities of that time stated. Almost one hundred years after, the “head” of Crimea Sergey Aksenov repeat the same slogans using other words: “The authorities always protect interests of Crimean Tatars. The present position to act protecting interests of Ukraine in the territory of Crimea is completely wrong. We want all media to cover everything what happens objectively.”
The deputy director of the ART TV-channel Lilya Budzhurova responded to this statement that the nation that survived deportation would be able to survive difficulties of Crimean realities: “Our nation outlived Stalin. Will it live through the present difficulties? Sure it will. And it will survive. It will keep building its own home on its land. Yes, we stop broadcasting today but we know we will return. We always return. Once again we will say “ATR is on the air.”
Director General of the ATR TV-channel Elzara Islyamova said in a conversation with journalists of Expresso TV that ATR doesn’t go anywhere forever – from Monday the TV-channel will work in the Internet and through a Ukrainian satellite that broadcasting throughout Europe and Russia. “In about 10 days we will go on the air through a Ukrainian satellite and in the Internet. We will work as a production house, creating products and set a signal from Ukraine.”
ATR TV-channel does not give up the fight at this point. “We will defend our right to broadcast the ART TV-channel in the old format,” Islyamova states. “Of course, we do not know whether it will be successful for us, but we won’t stop the fight”.
