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Jamming of Studio 7's signal
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2006-24
Monday June 12^th 2006 – Sunday June 18^th 2006

IN the week under review the Media Monitoring Project was unable to monitor Studio 7 bulletins (Tuesday to Friday) because its Medium Wave signal was suffocated by a steady droning sound similar to that used to jam SW Radio Africa and Radio Voice of the People frequencies last year.

Although government denied jamming SW Radio Africa, independent broadcasting experts insisted that a jamming signal emanating from Thornhill Airbase outside Gweru using equipment of Chinese origin was being used to drown the private radio station’s broadcasts.

The interference in Studio 7’s broadcasts is clearly a blatant attempt to deprive Zimbabweans of one of their last remaining alternative sources of information and quarantine the Zimbabwean nation entirely from news about Zimbabwe emanating from abroad.

MMPZ condemns this crude attempt to muzzle the independent media serving Zimbabwe precisely because it condemns the nation to ignorance about the truth of important issues and events that affect every Zimbabwean and forces them to depend on the propaganda produced by the government controlled media.

The jamming of Studio 7’s signal, together with government’s intention to introduce a new law allowing it to interfere with private mail, including e-mail and internet communications, represents a further intolerable erosion of Zimbabwe’s fundamental human rights and the final steps in the total control of all information received by Zimbabweans. MMPZ condemns the imposition of this totalitarian tyranny of thought in the strongest terms.

During the week, government’s total intolerance of any media diversity was reinforced by the comments of the Deputy Information Minister, Bright Matonga, who declared that his ministry was ready to reappoint Tafataona Mahoso as chairman of the Media and Information Commission (MIC) following the expiry of his tenure. Since the creation of the MIC and the appointment of Mahoso as its chairman four newspapers have been closed down and no independent, privately owned broadcasting stations have been allowed to operate in flagrant disregard of a Supreme Court ruling declaring ZBH’s de facto monopoly of the airwaves unconstitutional.

Despite the fact that the courts have declared Mahoso biased, particularly against the publishers of the country’s most popular daily, The Daily News, who have been trying to get the paper back on the streets, The Financial Gazette (15/6) quoted Matonga saying, "As far as we are concerned, Mahoso is doing an excellent job…If you think he is going you are living in cloud cuckoo land" because "he has government support".

His comments render irrelevant recent efforts by civil society to establish an independent media council to regulate media operations.

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