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Momodou
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 Posted - 12 Aug 2011 : 13:25:13
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Teranga FM Ordered to Stop News Review
By Saikou Jammeh
Friday, August 12, 2011
 Gambia’s National Intelligence Agency (NIA), has again given a clear-cut warning to the management of Teranga FM to stop broadcasting independent newspaper publications, else the radio station will be closed-down, this time, for good, The Daily News reliably gathered.
The manager of the Sinchu Alagie based community radio station Mr Ismaila Sisay was although unavailable for comments, sources close to him said, he had half hour-long discussion with the NIA boss on Wednesday.
Several sources also spotted his vehicle parked at the outskirts of the agency headquarters in Banjul at around ten o’clock in the morning. And yesterday, the Radio has announced that it will comply with the order.
Ever since the forceful shut-down of Citizen FM in 2001, no private radio station in The Gambia risks broadcasting local news, talkless of relaying information published on independent newspapers until when Teranga FM hits the airwaves in 2009.
Being the only non-state-owned radio station in The Gambia that does national news programme, Teranga FM’s daily review of news published in the local newspapers and translating it in local languages has attracted growing interest from the public. The Gambia has a large illiteracy population of about 50 percent.
“We have been living in darkness all these days [that Taranga have been closed]” a 50-year-old Ousman Fatty of Faji Kunda had told The Daily News in January during Taranga’s month-long temporal closure following an order from the NIA. “Teranga FM is the only radio station that liberates us as we cannot read newspapers because we are illiterates.”
When Gambia’s Information Minister, Alhagie Cham was asked at the parliament about the reason for Teranga FM’s closure, he said, it was due to administrative reasons.
However, when the radio station was allowed to resume operations, a directive contained in a letter from the Office of the President stated that it should discontinue review of newspapers. It is however allowed to relay news from the state-owned radio station.
And Wednesday directive, our source said, is said to be the final one, which if the community radio fails to comply, it will be permanently shut down.
A well-informed analyst The Daily News approached to comment on the development said, such a move is obvious and typical of the Jammeh administration, especially when presidential elections draw near.
Our analyst who begged anonymity cited the cases of Citizen FM and The Independent newspaper. The former was closed down in the run up to the parliamentary elections in 2002 while the latter was closed down in the run up to the 2006 presidential elections.
President Yahya Jammeh-led Gambia’s military-turned civilian regime’s 17 year rule has although witnessed a proliferation of media outlets, yet self censorship reigns in media houses in the face of hostile media environment.
Amid over a decade of varying degrees of attacks on Gambian journalists -- an unresolved murder, a case of disappearance, burning of press houses, and prosecution and punishing of journalists under muzzling press laws, The Gambia is ranked 125 out of a league table of 178 countries in the Paris-based media freedom watchdog, Reporters Without Borders 2010 press freedom index.
From 2000 to 2005, about four private media outlets: The Independent newspaper, New Citizen newspaper, Citizen FM radio and Sud FM were forced to close down operations without any known court order.
The Teranga FM saga is the latest in the chain of attacks on press freedom and freedom of speech in The Gambia.
It came barely few days after two of Gambia’s cabinet ministers: Communications and Foreign Affairs ministers respectively assured a commonwealth meeting held in Banjul that their government is open to debate on media reforms.
Source: Dailynews |
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