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MISA-Zimbabwe
nominates Radio VOP for One World Media Awards 2006
MISA-Zimbabwe
May, 2006
Progile of
Radio Voice of the People (VOP)
Radio
Voice of the People, established in June 2000, is a radio
station that is registered, as a communications trust in Zimbabwe
due to repressive media laws in place. Its daily programmes, targeted
at Zimbabweans are broadcast in the evening between 6-
7pm on Short Wave via Radio Netherlands transmitters in Madagascar.
There are two other similar radio stations run by Zimbabweans operating
from outside the country but targeting the Zimbabwean
listenership in the national languages of Shona, Ndebele and English, namely
Studio 7, a surrogate of Voice Of America (VOA) operating from
Washington DC and Short Wave Radio Africa, beaming from London.
This is so because long after the Broadcasting
Services Act was enacted in 2001 no private radio and television
stations have been granted broadcasting licences by the Broadcasting
Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ). This effectively means that only the
four radio stations and one television channel of the state-controlled
Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings (ZBH) enjoy the monopoly of
the air waves a situation that has been in existence even prior
to independence in 1980.
Radio VOP was
thus formed to be an alternative voice, especially on the eve of
the 2000 Parliamentary elections which ushered in a new formidable
opposition political party in the House of Assembly which has been
dominated the ruling party. A board of trustees leads Radio VOP
on policy matters while the day to day running of the station is
in the hands of an executive director who is in charge of journalists
and other support staff. There are 6 full time journalists and 15
correspondents based in all provinces of the country.
In July 2002
Police raided VOP offices confiscicated broadcasting equipment and
files and later returned them. On 29 August 2002 Radio
VOP offices in Harare were completely destroyed by a bomb blast
by unknown assailants who were never arrested. About three months
later the station was back on the air once again. In June 2003 Radio
VOP reporters Shorai Kariwa and Martin Chimenya were arrested
and beaten by ruling party militias and war veterans who accussed
them of sending false information about Zimbabwe to foreign countries.
Their mobile phones and recorders were taken and not returned back.
Later armed police and state security agents searched the home of
the executive director Mr John Masuku, took a personal
computer, office files and floppy diskettes which they returned
the following day.This happened when the main opposition party-Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) wanted to march to State House
to protest against the breakdown of the rule of law and human rights
abuses. At another time reporter Maria Nyanyiwa was briefly detained
by the police while covering a group of women activitists demonstrating
against the abuse of women and high cost of living in Zimbabwe.
In 2003 another
reporter Martin Chimenya was arrested and detained for a week for
interviewing an opposition party politician who commented that Zimbabwe's
withdrawal from the Commonwealth was an unwise move by the government
of President Mugabe.This happened during a major conference of the
ruling party in south eastern Zimbabwe.
On 15 December
2005 police and state security agents accompanied by staff of the
Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe raided Radio VOP offices in the
central business district of Harare.They arrested three journalists
and the Executive Director and detained them for four nights in
extremely filthy cells,later charged the director and board of trustees
for operating a radio station without a licence from BAZ. Radio
VOP denied the charges since its programmes are broadcast on
Radio Netherlands via its transmitters in Madagascar. Radio
VOP trustees and the executive director have appeared in court and
remanded out of custody. Their application for be removed from remand
was turned down by the magistrates court.
Vision:
A Zimbabwe that respects the right to information and enables citizens
to freely exchange knowledge and ideas so as to make informed choices.
Mission:
VOP lobbies and advocates for political, economic, cultural and
social development through alternative broadcasting.
Objectives:To
cover issues that would not make it to the state-controlled electronic
media.To encourage the input of all Zimbabweans and thus share ideas
and information regardless of social,religious or political differences.To
promote and protect the principles of pluralism and diversity in
the media.To encourage the development of participatorty democracy
in areas of health, governance, Parliament, business and community
development, environment and gender among others.To fight the HIV/AIDS
pandemic through the easily accessible radio medium.
Goal:
To be the first choice radio station for informed opinion in Zimbabwe
Editorial
policy:
Radio VOP is guided by an editorial policy which encourages impartiality:
promotes freedom of expression and responsible journalism.
Listenership:
According to research findings Radio VOP has a listenership of between
400 000 and 500 000 to its daily 60 minute broadcasts on Short
Wave.Short Wave can be accessed in any part of the country.Although
a few radio sets with Short and Medium Wave dials are still
manufactured in Zimbabwe thousands such sets have been brought
across the border from Botswana and South Africa as well as from
China and Malaysia, Zimbabwe's new trading partners under its Look
East policy.These radios together with batteries and other accessories
can be purchased cheaply by Zimbabweans in an economy that has seen
a deep fall of the Zimbabwean dollar to the major hard currencies.
Radio VOP's
listenership includes rurl and urban people, young and old.
Major achievements
of Radio VOP and suitability for the Special Achievement Award
for Community Media
- Operating
a critical media that affords everybody space for free expression
in a country where the state is known to unleash police brutality
when challenged. Despite this Radio VOP has operated
on the ground from within Zimbabwe since inception about
six years ago.In its lifetime the station has been castigated
and threatened by government and ruling party officials as a mouthpiece
of the West because of its criticism of bad policies,human rights
abuses and deterioration of rule of law.
- Sustaining
an informative and educative programme of 1hour and
at times, funds permitting, 2 hours every day without fail
and offering a balanced alternative voice to the biased state-run
ZBH radio stations which do not offer air time to critical individuals,civic
organizations and opposition parties.In short VOP has provided
a voice to the voiceless.
- Operating
in a harsh media environment in which only the state-run
broadcaster has the monopoly of the airwaves and privately owned
newspapers have been closed down and those remaining continue
to be harassed regularly with their journalists arrested and dragged
to court.
- Continuing
with operations since year 2000 despite a devastating
bomb blast, raids, seizure of equipment and office
files, arrests and court cases.Despite being jammed on one frequency
Radio VOP has changed frequencies much to the dismay of the state
which wants all privately-owned stations to be closed down.
- Increasing
the number of journalists from four, based in the major cities
to fifteen correspondents in all the provinces in order
to cover all news, views and information mainly in Shona, Ndebele
and English, the national languages of Zimbabwe.
- Helping civic
society organizations involved in human rights, health education, especially
HIV/AIDS elimination campaigns, constitutional reform,media
pluralism and diversity,gender,human and people's rights,civic
rights among others in their outreach programmes by interviewing
them about their work among communities.
- Broadcasting
a variety of news stories and editorial comments sourced
from both the government and privately-owned media; airing weekly
debates on topical issues of the time e.g Senate elections, succession
issues, attempts towards uniting major political parties,the deterioration
of the economy and how to revive it.
- Affording
all Zimbabweans the opportunity to air their views freely
on matters affecting their lives and country. Radio VOP has covered
major events like the general elections of 2000 which brought
in a strong opposition in Parliament, the Presidential elections
of 2002 which were marked with violence and other polls which
followed.The station told the story regarding the deterioration
of agricultural activities following the violent land seizures
since 2000 by the ruling elite assisted by veterans
of the armed struggle.Radio VOP also covered extensively the destruction
of homes and settlements during the so-called Operation Murambatsvina
(Restore Order) which was widely condemned for its inhuman approach
which left a lot of people homeless and destitute.
- The station
also affords its listeners a chance to participate in programmes
through competitions in which many prizes of Short Wave radio
sets are won as a way of promoting Short Wave radio listenership
which previously had been overtaken by FM listenership. Radio
VOP, together with other three companies formally applied for
radio and television broadcasting licences in 2004 when
BAZ called for them but none was awarded and it was back to square
one - ZBH monopoly.
Nomination sent
in by Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA-Zimbabwe) represented
by its Director Mr Rashweat Mukundu. Please note that we have also
informed Radio VOP through its Executive Director and representative Mr
John Masuku about our nomination.
MISA-Zimbabwe
is a media advocacy and watchdog organisation and is part
of the larger MISA family with chapters in 11 Southern Africa Countries.
Sincerely,
Rashweat Mukundu
MISA-Zimbabwe
Box HR 8113
Harare
Zimbabwe
Tel/fax 00 263 4 77 61 65, 746 838
Mobile 00 263 11 603 439
E mail director.misa@zimbaweb.net
Visit the MISA-Zimbabwe
fact sheet
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