Back to Index

Surviving in a risky environment: The Radio VOP story
John Masuku
Extracted from: Osisa - Openspace - The Media: expression and freedom
December 2006

http://www.osisa.org/node/7460

Download this document
- Acrobat PDF version (141KB)
If you do not have the free Acrobat reader on your computer, download it from the Adobe website by clicking here.

It is six years since Zimbabwe's Radio Voice of the People (VOP) was formed. Several things that have happened in this very short space of time, illustrate what an extremely difficult operating environment VOP has endured. Among these: VOP's offices have been bombed, its computer equipment confiscated by the police, and its journalists and trustees arrested on spurious charges of broadcasting without a license (that is granted through a government-appointed regulatory authority).

It seems that the governing authorities are uncomfortable with VOP's unwavering commitment to promoting free expression through the powerful medium of radio, as a voice of the voiceless in a country well-known for its draconian and repressive media laws as well as for selective justice.

Established to lobby and advocate for political, economic, cultural and social development through alternative broadcasting, Radio VOP came into being in mid-June 2000. To put the political landscape in perspective: this was just two weeks ahead of watershed general elections of the new millennium that ushered into parliament members of the then recently established Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The MDC clinched 57 of the
120 seats in the parliament, showing itself to be a formidable opposition party in Zimbabwe's Parliament which, for almost 20 years, had been dominated by the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front) ZANU (PF) party, resulting in a de facto one-party state. Radio VOP's founding trustees only thought that they were laying the groundwork for the seemingly imminent opening up of the airwaves through a short-term radio project that would provide alternative views largely disregarded by the then monopolistic Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), now Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings (ZBH), which was in the run-up to the polls, unashamedly biased in its news and other programme coverage towards the ruling party and government.

Download full document 

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP