Although there had been various analyses indicating Eutelsat stopped NTDTV's broadcast signal to Mainland China for financial advantages, I was still greatly shocked when I read the Reporters Without Borders investigative report on July 11. I think it inconceivable that French-based Eutelsat, located in a democratic country like France, could have done such a strange thing - completely disregarding business ethics and a contract, at the expense of sacrificing the right to freedom of information for more 1.3 billion Chinese people. What the company has done will amount to huge damage to its business reputation and long-term interests.
The signal was cut off on June 17, 2008. Even though there was nothing special about that day, I remember it very well. That day I was invited to help a keen viewer of NTDTV to install a satellite receiver. I started the installation at around 10:00 a.m. and went on the roof to adjust the signal around 11:00 am. By 5:00 p.m. I still could not locate the NTDTV signal. I checked again and again and changed four positions trying to find the signal. Normally it would only take me 10 minutes to half an hour to finish the job, but that day it took me over five hours. I was on the roof, under the scorching sun, repeatedly testing and adjusting. It was rather gruelling, and I wanted to finish the job as soon as possible. If it had not been for the viewer's strong wish to watch NTDTV I would not have had the patience to spend five hours on a roof. Still, I could not get the signal and went home. In the evening, when I browsed NTDTV's website and learned the news that Eutelsat had cut off the NTDTV signal stating a "technical anomaly," I understood why I could not find the signal.
The next day I heard that many of the viewers who could no longer get NTDTV programs tried to adjust their receiver themselves; some tried to find out what had happened... Later, when the various analyses came out that exposed Eutelsat's submission to the Chinese regime, people got to see Eutelsat's ugly, greedy act, colluding with the hoodlum regime for financial gains. One viewer said, "This is too much of a bully. I suggest NTDTV launch its own satellite so that it won't be interfered with. I would like to donate money to help make this happen!" This viewers words shows the Mainland Chinese people's longing for NTDTV and for free information.
Why is it that NTDTV enjoys such popularity among TV viewers in Mainland China? As we know, since the CCP controls all information in Mainland China, all media speak as one, repeatedly instilling into people's minds the idea that "the CCP is forever great, glorious and correct." However, during the 58 years of its rule, more than 80 million people have died from unnatural causes. The regime divides people into classes by economic standards and uses class struggle to destroy human nature, with an ultimate goal of turning the entire Chinese population into inhumane, economic accessories and animals that it can slaughter at will.
Although the regime has adopted so-called reforms and an open-up policy, the massacre of students on Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989 proves that its brutal nature has never changed, and the reform and open-up policy adopted by the regime is only a necessity for its survival. In 1999, a rampant persecution and defamation was launched against a group of people who cultivate their hearts according to the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. This clearly shows the Communist regime's deceitful, vicious and ruthless nature.
Decades of violent suppression and deception have severely twisted the minds of the Chinese people, pushing Mainland China's population further and further away from China's traditional ethics of paying attention to virtue and doing good deeds. It is gratifying that Falun Gong practitioners with their belief in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance are promoting change for the improvement of people's minds, and with the help of NTDTV are guiding the masses of people to systematically reflect spiritually upon the savage dictatorship of the CCP. As a result of the dissemination of Falun Gong's values, human kindness that the ruling regime had buried starts to manifest and people are once more seeing beauty and hope in life. NTDTV is like a window at the top of a suffocating regime-dictated incarceration in a jail cell and enables people to breathe the air of freedom. Breathing the air of freedom makes people feel like they had gained a new life.
NTDTV, with its independent reports and concern for people has enabled the citizens in Mainland China to learn the facts about the heavy, disastrous snowstorm earlier in 2008 in the south and the May 12, 2008 earthquake in Sichuan. In particular, learning about the regime's earthquake forecast cover-up, people have become aware that the right to know is no different to the right to live.
NTDTV's Chinese New Year Spectacular, filled with kindness and beauty, has enabled people to experience the spirit of divine culture, bringing people great joy and happiness. The variety of competitions sponsored by NTDTV is guiding people to restore and carry on traditional Chinese culture and abide by moral values.
NTDTV is the only TV venue that can transmit to the people in Mainland China the sound of freedom and the values of orthodox culture. The media outlet is concerned with the awakening of the Chinese people, their current existence and the future of their lives. In view of all these factors, it is not difficult to understand why people cherish NTDTV so much.
Here I would like to voice my strong condemnation of Eutelsat for being an accomplice of the murderous CCP officials, for blocking the only window the Mainland Chinese people have to breathe the air of freedom. What Eutelsat has done is no different than helping the ruling regime to kill people.
I call upon democratic countries such as the United States, the European Union, especially France, as well as people in other organizations to help NTDTV restore its broadcasts to Mainland China. That would be the greatest help you can offer to the people who live under this barbaric dictatorship and suppression in Mainland China. I would like to thank you in advance.
I am writing this letter not only for myself, but for the people in China, because during the process while helping people install satellite receivers I saw the hopeful hearts of many, many people.
A resident in Shandong Province, Mainland China