A former member of British parliament says Press TV ban is a blow to the UK government and that Ofcom revoked the channel's license because it offers transparent news coverage.
“[Press TV has] built an audience for the station very quickly and very widely over the last couple of years, precisely because of the shortcomings of other channels,” George Galloway said in an interview with Press TV.
“The British government likes to dress up in the clothes of liberty, but in truth it is far from a friend of liberty and they have demonstrated it in the course of their action against Press TV throughout the last few months and again today.”
Galloway added that Ofcom's decision to close down Press TV to the British public was a greater blow to the UK government than to the news channel as it revealed London's “hypocritical stance of being in favor of freedom of expression, freedom of speech.”
The British Office of Communications (Ofcom) revoked Press TV's license and removed the channel from the Sky platform on Friday for what it claimed to be the news network's breach of the Communications Act. Ofcom had earlier hit Press TV with a fine of 100 thousand pounds.
Many observers, however, believe that the British government's hostile campaign against Press TV has its roots in the channel's extensive and transparent coverage of the role the British government played in the killing of tens of thousands of innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan.
They have also noted this behavior is quite natural for a government with more than 400 years of colonialist background filled with breaches of people's rights, murder, and plundering various nations' assets.
“Well now the whole world can see that flag that you (UK government) are showing on the screen now is a flag of hypocrisy not democracy,” Galloway concluded.
