18 Feb
2015
18 Feb
'15
5:25 p.m.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Feb. 18, 2015
Contact: Rohit Mahajan 202 530 4976 <mailto:mahajanr@rfa.org>
mahajanr(a)rfa.org
RFA's Tibetan Service Launches Satellite TV Broadcast
WASHINGTON - Marking Losar, the Tibetan new year, Radio Free Asia
<http://www.rfa.org/english/> 's Tibetan Service
<http://www.rfa.org/tibetan/> today launched its first satellite television
broadcast <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNgPnreV_cw#t=61> . The half-hour
program airs daily at 6 p.m. in China's Tibetan regions and 3:30 p.m. in
Dharamsala, India.
"With the launch of RFA Tibetan's daily satellite TV broadcast, we begin a
new and exciting chapter for both RFA and our Tibetan audiences," said Libby
Liu, President of Radio Free Asia (RFA). "Starting today, as we join
Tibetans everywhere around the world in celebrating Losar, RFA will provide
a great way to access uncensored news and information."
Since it began in December 1996, RFA's Tibetan Service - which broadcasts in
the Uke, Amdo, and Kham dialects - has covered the Chinese authorities'
longstanding crackdown on Tibetan protests, and political, religious, and
human rights abuses throughout the Tibetan ethnic regions of China. Press
freedom watchdog group Reporters Without Borders <http://index.rsf.org/#!/>
considers China among the world's most challenging and restricted media
environments for journalists. Despite these challenges, the service has
broken the vast majority of stories related to the ongoing wave of
self-immolations in China's Tibetan regions since they began in 2009.
The service's new half-hour daily satellite TV broadcast opens another
channel for RFA Tibetan to focus on these and other issues through news
programming, as well as hosted talk shows, and special interviews. The
service joins RFA's Myanmar, Mandarin, and Cantonese services, which also
offer its audiences satellite television programming.
# # #
Radio Free Asia is a private, nonprofit corporation broadcasting and
publishing online news, information, and commentary in nine East Asian
languages to listeners who do not have access to full and free news media.
RFA's broadcasts seek to promote the rights of freedom of opinion and
expression, including the freedom to "seek, receive, and impart information
and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." RFA is funded by
an annual grant from the Broadcasting Board of Governors.
Rohit Mahajan | Radio Free Asia | Media Relations Manager
<mailto:mahajanr@rfa.org> mahajanr(a)rfa.org | O: 202.530.4976 | M:
202.489.8021
