About Gali Kurdistan

Gali Kurdistan

Gali Kurdistan is a Kurdish satellite television channel operated by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) from Sulaymaniyah, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Its name means the People of Kurdistan, and it is described as the PUK's official spokesman channel and as the party's main television station. The channel carries news and current affairs alongside general programming on society, culture, women, the environment, law and sport. Its history is unusually long for Kurdish television: it began as a local station in Sulaymaniyah in 1991, in the aftermath of the Kurdish uprising of that year, and expanded to satellite broadcasting in 2008, transforming from a local broadcaster into a satellite news and general channel for a Kurdish audience inside Iraq and abroad.

Origins in 1991: the first Kurdish television after the uprising

Academic research on the channel divides its history into two phases. The first, from 1991 to 2008, was the period of local television news production, when the channel covered local news for a local audience in Sulaymaniyah. One study records the launch date as 3 March 1991 and describes Gali Kurdistan as the first Kurdish television channel established after the revolution of 1991. A channel history published by a Kurdish television listing service gives a founding date of 11 September 1991, when the PUK leader Jalal Talabani, known as Mam Jalal, gave a historic speech to mark the beginning of broadcasting in Sulaymaniyah. The two accounts differ on the exact day but agree on the essential facts: the station was born in Sulaymaniyah in 1991, as the PUK's television voice, at the moment Kurdish self-government was being created in northern Iraq.

In that first phase the channel's aims were to broadcast a variety of programmes for the Kurdish community, including news, arts, politics and health, and to support democratic concepts in the Kurdish community. The channel broadcast in three languages, Kurdish, Arabic and Turkmen, reflecting the mixed population of the wider region. Production capacity was limited, as it was for all Kurdish media of the sanctions era, but the station established the PUK's presence on television years before satellite broadcasting began.

The 2008 satellite transformation

The second phase began on 1 June 2008, when Gali Kurdistan launched as a satellite news channel from Sulaymaniyah. Reporters Without Borders, classifying Iraqi Kurdish media by affiliation, listed Gali Kurdistan among the media groups directly affiliated with the ruling parties, as the PUK's channel launched in 2008. The satellite service broadcast in both Sorani and Kurmanji Kurdish, widening its reach from the Sorani-speaking Sulaymaniyah area to Kurmanji speakers in the north of the region and in the diaspora. In its early satellite form the channel ran more than nineteen news programmes throughout the day, operating on a non-automated production system from its central station in Sulaymaniyah.

The move to satellite fundamentally changed the channel's news practice and production framework, shifting it from a local broadcasting company serving one city towards a global satellite broadcaster addressing an international Kurdish audience. That transition, from public local television to a satellite news channel, is the subject of academic study of newsroom technology in the Kurdistan Region, which uses Gali Kurdistan as a case of how new technology reshaped the news production process.

Ownership and role within the PUK

Gali Kurdistan belongs to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the two main parties of the Kurdistan Region. The PUK's own organisational structure places the People of Kurdistan TV, based in Sulaymaniyah, at the head of its television operations, supervised through the party's Bureau for Information alongside the Voice of the People of Kurdistan radio station, the Kurdistani Nwe daily newspaper and smaller television stations in the towns and districts of the region. Canadian refugee research summarising scholarly sources describes GK TV as a channel founded by the PUK and considered the first Kurdish satellite television news channel.

Analysts of Kurdish media note that the PUK's media operations reflect the party's internal factionalism more than the centralised KDP system does. The Middle East Institute's study of partisan press in the Kurdistan Region names Kurdsat and Gali Kurdistan as the PUK's well-established satellite stations associated with the party's leadership. A 2024 mapping of the region's media landscape likewise lists Gali Kurdistan simply as the PUK-affiliated TV channel, in a system where nearly every significant outlet belongs to a party, a party faction or a party-linked businessman.

Programming and editorial scope

Although its satellite relaunch emphasised news, Gali Kurdistan is a general-format channel rather than a purely news-only service. Its editorial scope combines news and public affairs with programmes dealing with society, culture, women, the environment, law, sports and other general-interest subjects, and its schedule includes discussion, cultural, social and topical programmes alongside regular news output. Channel descriptions also list politics, economy, culture and sports among its core topics, together with special programmes about Kurdish history and culture. Its stated mission, as presented in channel profiles, is to promote democracy, freedom of expression and human rights in Kurdistan by providing information through its programming, and to bridge cultural gaps between the different ethnic groups living in the region by airing programmes focused on common interests.

Regional reporting and correspondents

Regional reporting is a central part of the channel's work. News coverage follows developments across the Kurdistan Region and Iraq, and the organisation maintains correspondents in other parts of the region and abroad. As the PUK's spokesman channel, its news agenda follows the party's heartlands in Sulaymaniyah, Halabja, Kirkuk and the Garmian and Raparin administrations, while also reporting Iraqi national politics from the perspective of a Kurdish governing party that participates in Baghdad institutions. Streaming services that carry the channel present it as a source of the latest stories and developments from Iraqi Kurdistan for Kurds around the world, including communities in Turkey, Syria, Iran, Europe and America.

Sister services

The Gali Kurdistan name extends beyond the main Sulaymaniyah channel. Listings of Kurdish-language television channels record Gali Kurdistan Slemani, Gali Kurdistan Sport and Gali Kurdistan Hawler as related services, all under the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The sport service reflects the importance of football in the channel's general offer, while the Hawler service carries the brand into Erbil, the regional capital dominated politically by the rival KDP. The PUK's wider television family also includes Kurdsat and its news channel, the Kirkuk channel listed under PUK ownership, and smaller local stations in the party's areas, making Gali Kurdistan one element of a broader party broadcasting system rather than a standalone station.

Broadcasting and online presence

Gali Kurdistan broadcasts by satellite, listed at the Eutelsat 8 West B position used by many Kurdish channels, and streams online, with a webcast and applications for Android and iOS users historically offered through its official site. The channel's satellite presence places it in the standard Kurdish channel neighbourhoods scanned by viewers in Iraq and the diaspora, alongside Kurdsat, Rudaw, NRT and Kurdistan 24. For a station that began with limited local production in 1991, the combination of satellite carriage and app-based streaming completes the transformation described by researchers: local Sulaymaniyah television become a Kurdish service available anywhere.

Historical significance

Gali Kurdistan's significance is historical as much as editorial. It links three eras of Kurdish media: the improvised local television of the 1991 uprising period, when PUK peshmerga seized transmission facilities and parties built their own stations; the party satellite era that followed the launch of Kurdistan TV in 1999 and Kurdsat in 2000; and the competitive multi-channel market of the 2010s, in which audience research measured Gali Kurdistan among the top twenty Kurdish stations. Through all three eras it remained the PUK's own channel, the television counterpart of the party's newspaper and radio voice.

Gali Kurdistan today

Today Gali Kurdistan continues from Sulaymaniyah as a general Kurdish channel of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, mixing news bulletins and current affairs with cultural, social and sports programming in Sorani and Kurmanji. It is neither the region's largest channel nor an independent one, and it does not claim to be: it is the official television voice of one of Kurdistan's two governing parties, with roots in the first year of Kurdish self-rule, still broadcasting more than three decades after its local beginning.