Egypt: Giving persecuted Christians a voice – the Sat-7 Christian TV Station in the Middle East

Dishes filled with spiritual food. The technology of the Good News (SAT-7). @ACN
Dishes filled with spiritual food. The technology of the Good News (SAT-7). @ACN

Faith comes from hearing. Radio and TV are becoming ever more important, not just for entertainment but also as purveyors of knowledge and information. The role of Christian programming in the context of the New Evangelisation is an aspect that should not be underestimated, given that it can reach such a vast audience, including among others the sick who could not otherwise participate in parish life but who can for example join in the great prayer of the Holy Mass while watching it on their TV screens. And it can also reach people where there are no churches or where the Faith cannot be lived openly. Such broadcasting represents an opportunity for distance learning in the Faith and in the transmission of Christian values, while at the same time remaining close to ordinary people. Since the early 1960s ACN has been funding a variety of radio and TV stations, as well as print media, around the world.

For Christians in the Middle East and North Africa the TV station Sat-7 has proved a real blessing. Ever since it was first established in 1995 the station has been broadcasting, on three separate channels 24 hours a day, with a variety of Christian programming. It broadcasts to an audience of some 8 to 10 million viewers, of whom surveys indicate that 2.6 million switch in daily while a further 5.3 million viewers watch from time to time. They come from all ages and walks of life, which is no surprise, since the broad range of programmes appeals to the widest possible audience, ranging as it does from cartoons, talkshows, Christian music videos and comedy films through documentaries, televised Masses, theological seminars and news programmes to programmes aimed especially at women.

Sat-7 offers a platform of faith-based and Christian entertainment programmes, not least with a view to the millions of Christians who have been forced, day by day, to leave their homelands in the face of open persecution and death threats. To these and to Christian minorities everywhere, who face daily discrimination and even open persecution, Sat-7 gives a voice. More recently, in 2006 a new transmitter, Sat-7 Pars, was set up to reach the Christian minorities in Iran and Turkey, broadcasting in Farsi and Turkish. This daughter station of Sat-7 broadcasts from Istanbul, for 20 hours daily in Farsi and for four hours daily in Turkish. The programming team is made up of Iranian exiles, now living in Istanbul.

The overarching goal and desire of the Sat-7 TV team is to explain the Christian faith through the programmes and broadcasts, in a prudent and respectful way without being in the least doctrinaire, in order to be in this way "a bridge between Christians and members of other non-Christian faiths", as Kurt Johansen, the secretary of the station in Europe explains, "In fact we believe that Sat-7 is more than just a TV station, for it gives the persecuted Christians a sense of identity and at the same time an added legitimacy in the eyes of non-Christians and national governments."

Sat-7 will continue to broadcast for as long as it has the means to do so. Since the satellite contract of Sat-7 does not allow them to ask a fee of their viewers, the station has to fund itself – no easy matter in countries where Christians are a small minority. ACN has been helping for years and will continue to help, this time it is hoped with a contribution of €30,000, so that Sat-7 can continue to be a voice for the embattled Christians of the Middle East and North Africa.

To know about this and many other similar projects in favour of the pastoral needs of the suffering Church, please contact our national offices.