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Continued jamming of Studio 7 signal
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2006-31
Monday July 31^st 2006 – Sunday August 4^th 2006

THIS week MMPZ was unable to receive a consistently clear signal from Voice of America’s Studio 7 broadcasting service. The steady droning interference appears to corroborate earlier reports (ZimOnline, 26/6) that the Central Intelligence Organisation and engineers from the Ministry of Information were "now working flat out" to find ways of "completely" jamming the radio station’s broadcasts into Zimbabwe.

The jamming indicates a single-minded determination to ensure that the station’s broadcasts into Zimbabwe cannot be heard. When the jamming started in June, VOA spokesperson, Joe O’Connell was quoted by the Committee to Protect Journalists (4/7) as saying only the Medium Wave broadcasts were affected. But in the week under review the station’s Short Wave signal also appears to have been interfered with. For example, of the week’s Studio 7 Short Wave bulletins that MMPZ tried to monitor, only three (1/8, 2/8 & 4/8) were mostly audible, but even then under constant interference. The other two (31/7 & 3/8) were completely muffled by a continuous grinding sound that specifically coincided with the start and end of the bulletin.

If government’s threats to stifle what it considers to be illegal broadcasting have anything to do with this development, MMPZ is again obliged to condemn it as a cynical interference with the public’s constitutional right to freedom of expression and their right to access information without hindrance. Studio 7 and SW Radio Africa emerged precisely because of ZBH’s illegal de facto monopoly of the airwaves and serve as vital alternative sources of credible news for information-starved Zimbabweans who have to endure the blatant propagandist output of the government-controlled national public broadcaster.

Government should be speeding up the process of licensing local independent broadcasters instead of wasting resources investing in equipment to shut down alternative sources of information.

Meanwhile, the need to reform the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act to ensure that it compels public officials to release information that is in the public interest was demonstrated in The Standard (6/8) story Police service anti-riot gear. The paper was unable to officially confirm its story because, according to the reporter, Senior Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena "does not speak" to The Standard.

Journalists depend, for balance, fairness and accuracy, on access to official news sources. Besides being a biased and arbitrary decision to deprive a news institution of information of public interest and importance, the refusal by the police to disclose such information allows public officials to escape scrutiny and undermines democratic standards of disclosure and transparency.

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