COPENHAGEN – A Kurdish-language TV station broadcasting from Europe is promoting a terrorist organization and should be fined and pulled from the air, a prosecutor said Monday.
Jakob Buch-Jepsen said Roj-TV is "glorifying" the PKK, or the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which is considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union. PKK rebels have waged a campaign for autonomy in Turkey's southeast since 1984 in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people.
The station is accused of broadcasting material "with PKK sympathizers, PKK people and skirmishes between Kurds and Turkish forces," Buch-Jepsen told Copenhagen's City Court.
Roj-TV has a Danish broadcasting license, although its studios are in Belgium. The charges are directed at two Denmark-based companies -- Roj-TV and parent company Mesopotamia Broadcast A/S METV.
"Roj-TV is working as a mouthpiece for the PKK. They have made glorifying reviews about the PKK that can be characterized as propaganda," Buch-Jepsen said, adding the charges cover the period from 2006 to 2010.
Prosecutors are demanding fines and that Roj-TV's Danish broadcasting license be revoked.
Defense lawyer Bjoern Elmquist said the TV station has denied the accusations.
"Just because a newspaper in Denmark interviews a Taliban chief doesn't make the daily a mouthpiece for the Taliban," he told The Associated Press.
The trial was attended by three Kurdish lawmakers and Turkey's Ambassador to Denmark Berki Dibek.
"We expect this lawsuit to be concluded as expeditiously as possible so this terror propaganda organ of the PKK is sentenced in accordance with the Danish penal code," Dibek told the AP.
Some 30 Kurds staged a peaceful demonstration outside the courtside Monday.
A verdict is expected in November.
