(AMARC/IFEX) – On 3 July 2002, National Telecommunications Commission (Comision Nacional de Telecomunicaciones, CONATEL) agents, accompanied by police, shut down community radio station Ñemity FM in Capiibary, San Pedro Department, and confiscated its equipment. The commission was acting in accordance with a 30 November 1999 judicial order to close the station. Ñemity FM belongs to […]
(AMARC/IFEX) – On 3 July 2002, National Telecommunications Commission (Comision Nacional de Telecomunicaciones, CONATEL) agents, accompanied by police, shut down community radio station Ñemity FM in Capiibary, San Pedro Department, and confiscated its equipment. The commission was acting in accordance with a 30 November 1999 judicial order to close the station.
Ñemity FM belongs to the organisation Ñemity Comunicaciones. It is a member of the Paraguayan community radio association (Asociacion Paraguaya de Radiodifusion Comunitaria, COMUNICA) and is associated with AMARC. The station has been broadcasting in Capiibary for more than four years.
The radio station reported on and provided assistance to rural organisations during the recent protests in San Pedro Department. Together with these organisations, the station carried out a campaign in support of the villagers located in Santa Rasa del Aguaray. The station also collected a large sum of money for the villagers. The execution of the order to close the station, more than two years after it was issued, suggests that the radio station is being punished and its freedom of expression attacked for giving a voice to the community.
According to COMUNICA, the station’s closure is “a new attack against community radio stations in Paraguay. The action openly violates Telecommunications Law 642/95, of which Chapter IV, Articles 57-58-59 recognise the legality of community radio stations, as do Articles 27, 30 and 45 of the Constitution.”
Moreover, the association calls for “the respect of four signed agreements between COMUNICA and the national government (on the following dates – 26 October 1999, 30 November 1999, 24 July 2000, 26 March 2001), in which the government promised not to close any community radio stations until regulatory standards for these stations were set in place.”
Recommended Action
Send letters of support to:
COMUNICA
Asociacion Paraguaya de Radiodifusion Comunica
Fax: +595 21 297806/373242
E-mail: radioscomunica@hotmail.com
Send appeals to authorities:
– asking that the radio station’s equipment be returned
– calling on them to respect the Constitution and Telecommunications Law 642/95
Appeals To
Ing. VICTOR BOGADO
Presidente de CONATEL
Fax: +595 21 498888
Please copy appeals to the source if possible.
