Fighting for free speech – SW Radio Africa launch SMS campaign

Via SW Radio Africa:

Mobile phone campaign

From Friday 8th December we will begin sending news headlines via SMS to mobile phones.
If you have a friend or relative in Zimbabwe who would like to receive this service please email their mobile phone number to: talk@swradioafrica.com

This initiative follows recent reports that Mugabe‘s security agents are now confiscating radios in an effort to clamp down even further on access to information and objective news reporting:

The Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe said police and suspected agents of the Central Intelligence Organization, the country’s secret police, have been seizing radios donated to union members in the country’s Midlands province.

A senior union official said members in the area reported that known CIO agents and police had confiscated the solar-powered radios without justification.

The PTUZ has distributed radios to members in remote areas of the country to allow them to listen to independent news broadcasts from outside of Zimbabwe.

Nongovernmental organizations have also distributed small portable radios to small communities through local contacts who direct radios to those who need them (VOA News).

And this via SW Radio Africa:

Chamisa says their national office is inundated with complaints from people who have had their radios taken away and their information department is busy compiling a list of all the reported cases. Initially it had been thought radios donated to listening clubs were the prime target but by Tuesday the seizures had become indiscriminate with many people said to have lost their own private portable radio sets. Listening club members are being threatened and told they are selling out the country by listening to ‘foreign’ broadcasts. Several NGO’s donated solar powered, wind up radios for the listening clubs and Chamisa says although these are being targeted, the regime now believes it can reduce the number of shortwave radio listeners via a programme of indiscriminate national seizures.

Technorati Tags: SW Radio Africa, campaign, SMS, Zimbabwe, Mugabe, Central Intelligence Organization, CIO, radio, human rights, free speech, media

This entry was posted by Hope on Monday, December 11th, 2006 at 4:46 pm. You can follow any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.