Polisario Front TV wants sat-TV

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Quite how the regulators might handle the promised RASD-TV is open to debate, but Western Sahara’s breakaway Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (RASD) is about to launch a satellite channel.

BBC Monitoring carried the report on May 14 that the RASD station’s existing four-hour daily terrestrial transmissions out of Rabuni (the administrative capital of the region) will expand to the rest of the region, helped by satellite broadcasting. However, the report did not say which satellite would be carrying the signals.

Funding has come from a Spanish-based group, the Friends of the Sahara Association, which helped provide equipment and training. The director of RASD TV, Mohamed Salem, said the channel was still waiting for more equipment and material but he added that the broadcasts would start "in a few days or a few weeks".

On May 20, the Polisario Front will celebrate the 35th anniversary of its creation with various events which will be staged in Tifariti, situated in [the "liberated areas" of] Western Sahara, said the BBC.

The Front is fighting for the independence of Western Sahara from Morocco, although a ceasefire has been in place since 1991. The Republic is a member of the African Union, but not of the United Nations. It is currently recognised by 43 countries, nearly all of these are African or Latin American, and has been acknowledged as a state by over 70 states although about 35 have since withdrawn recognition.


Source: Rapid TV News