(PERIODISTAS/IFEX) – On 10 September 2002, the daily “A Tarde”, of the Brazilian state of Bahia, reported that the Cipo city prefect, José Wilson Britto, had threatened to close the Milenium FM community radio station. This threat was made in spite of the fact that the radio station holds a licence granted by the National […]
(PERIODISTAS/IFEX) – On 10 September 2002, the daily “A Tarde”, of the Brazilian state of Bahia, reported that the Cipo city prefect, José Wilson Britto, had threatened to close the Milenium FM community radio station. This threat was made in spite of the fact that the radio station holds a licence granted by the National Telecommunications Agency (Agencia Nacional de Telecomunicaciones, ANATEL), the radio broadcasting regulatory body in Brazil.
In May, Renata de Britto Moreira, Cipo municipal secretary and the prefect’s daughter, informed the Nueva Esperanza Community Association for Culture and Communication, the organisation that runs Milenium FM, that the station’s broadcasts must be “immediately suspended.” She argued that the station lacked the proper operating permit (Permiso de Localizacion y Funcionamiento), as required by the municipal tax department.
In making this demand, the municipal secretary both ignored ANATEL’s authority and discounted Milenium’s widely recognised work in the areas of education and community broadcasting. The station currently broadcasts the most popular radio show in the district, “Cipo Noticias”, which gives local residents the opportunity to go on air to voice their grievances and demands. Through a project funded by the Brazilian Ministry of Education and the World Bank, Milenium FM was able to install loudspeakers in public areas to broadcast another of its radio programmes, “Education on the Air”. However, the setup was dismantled after a previous conflict with the prefect.
On 9 September, journalists from “A Tarde” went to interview Prefect Britto at his home, in order to hear his side of the story. However, immediately after the interview began, the prefect “became aggressive, and threw both the reporter and the photographer out of his house.”
