PARIS, Feb 4, 2010 (AFP) - A Georgian channel aiming to challenge Moscow's near-monopoly on TV news in the Caucasus took a satellite operator to court here Thursday accusing it of bowing to Russian pressure and blocking its broadcasts.
    First Caucasian channel claims Eutelsat is in breach of contract and wants the commercial court in Paris to issue a provisional order to force it to resume transmitting the station from one of its satellites.
    The court will deliver its verdict on Monday, said Henri D'Armagnac, a lawyer representing the Russian-language channel that seeks to present an alternative viewpoint for viewers in the volatile Caucasus region.
    D'Armagnac said Wednesday he would present to the court proof that it was the content of the channel that posed a problem for Paris-based Eutelsat, in which the French state has a 26-percent stake via a state investment fund.
    Eutelsat has staunchly denied that it came under any pressure from Moscow and that no contract is "in force" between it and the state-funded Georgia Public Broadcasting company, which runs First Caucasian.
    The two sides have got into a highly technical debate about satellites, antennas and decoders.
    First Caucasian believes the satellite Eutelsat is now offering -- which is different to the one it allocated for the test broadcasts -- will drastically limit the number of viewers who can pick it up.
    But Eutelsat, which insists it has no political agenda, says that is nonsense, and that the satellite it is now proposing will give it better coverage than it had during its test in January.
    Whatever the truth, the channel's availability in the Caucasus was always likely to infuriate Moscow, which has fought two wars against Chechen separatists and is facing an Islamic insurgency in the region.
    Its launch also came amid deep tensions between Georgia and Russia, who fought a brief war in 2008 over the Russian-backed breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia.
    The Wall Street Journal on Thursday devoted an editorial to the matter, saying that "Eutelsat's move in favour of Moscow transmits as clear a signal as the TV-watchers of Eurasia could ever need: No room for opposition here."
    It noted that Eutelsat, one of the world's three main satellite operators, had in 2004 removed Al-Manar, a television station owned by the Muslim militant group Hezbollah, following a French court order.
    The operator was also was accused in 2008 of caving in to Chinese authorities and suspending use of one of its satellites for an independent Chinese-language broadcaster.
    "Having no political agenda of their (Eutelsat) own isn't quite the same as not pandering to giants with agendas of repression," concluded the Wall Street Journal.
    Alexander Rondeli, of the Georgian Foundation for International and Strategic Studies thinktank, shared that view.
    "It's a combination of two main factors: Russian political pressure and their (Eutelsat's) commercial interests as they preferred more lucrative Russian customers to Georgia's public broadcaster," he said.
    The Russian prime minister's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that the channel's battle with Eutelsat "had absolutely nothing to do with us."
    But Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has accused the satellite operator of setting a "dangerous precedent of international political censorship" by taking First Caucasian off the air.
    First Caucasian said it had lost out because Eutelsat had chosen instead to sign "a lucrative contract" with Russian satellite company Intersputnik to provide broadcasts for a unit of state-controlled Russian giant Gazprom.
    The move left "Intersputnik and Gazprom Media Group -- both of which adhere to the Kremlin's editorial line -- with a de facto satellite transmission monopoly over Russian-language audience," the channel claimed.