TEHRAN – IRIB World Service announced on Wednesday that PAKSAT, a Pakistani satellite capacity that provides service for TV broadcasters in West Asia, South Asia, Africa and Europe, has stopped broadcasting Iran’s iFilm English channel over its liabilities.

With hundreds million viewers, iFilm is one of the popular channels of IRIB World Service in Pakistan and India.

The deadline for paying liabilities was June 20 and PAKSAT stopped its service for the channel on Tuesday evening. 

PAKSAT earlier stopped broadcasting the Sahar TV Urdu channel after the IRIB channel failed to make payments to clear its arrears.

The liabilities of Al-Kawthar TV to Eutelsat, a European satellite operator providing coverage over the entire European continent, West Asia, Africa, Asia and the Americas, have also closed IRIB’s Arabic-language channel. 

Iran’s Press TV, an Iranian news and documentary network that broadcasts in the English and French languages, is also dealing with the same problem.

Over 200 MPs in the Iranian parliament have criticized the issue of the chain cutoffs of IRIB channels and asked the government to cover IRIB’s debt liabilities to international satellite operators.

Earlier last week, a group of over 100 officials signed a petition asking the government to allocate a special budget for paying the IRIB’s debts.

Photo: A logo for iFilm.

MMS/YAW