LTTE’S PAY TELEVISION SERVICE OUTSIDE PARIS, TTN HAS BEEN CLOSED DOWN UNDER PRESSURE BY SRI LANKA’S PARIS ENVOY

By Walter Jayawardhana

Under intense pressure brought by Sri Lanka government through its Paris embassy a pay television channel broadcasting Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam called Tamil Television Network (TTN) has been closed down at the orders of the French government.

In a Good Bye message broadcast to its viewers the TTN said they were closing down under intense political pressure.

The TTN operation was conducted out of Paris by the beleaguered LTTE in France where its leaders have been prosecuted in courts for fund raising activities by the French government.

The Television station together with other services were used by the Tamil Tigers mainly to collect money for the coffers to sustain an insurgency with widely practiced terrorism like attacking civilian buses killing scores of passengers and defiantly using child soldiers for its war and suicide bombings targeting both civilian and military victims.

The station shut down its program at 5 p.m. French time on May 2 , reports from Paris said.
The LTTE television programs were up linked by Globecast satellite and distributed across France. It was alleged they were operating without a proper

License from the French authorities. Globecast is a subsidiary owned by the France Telecom and the representations were made to the parent company.

Earlier the National Television of Tamil Eelam (NTT) the official channel broadcast by the LTTE was also closed down following representations made to the Intelsat by the Washington Embassy of Sri Lanka.