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Dr Tafataona Mahoso

Senior Reporter
The Netherlands has no justification to fund a pirate radio station broadcasting illegally into Zimbabwe, media practitioners have said.
They said this in response to claims by Dutch Ambassador to Zimbabwe Mrs Gera Sneller that Voice of the People was abiding by her country’s laws.

Mrs Sneller made the claim after meeting Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo in Harare on Wednesday.

Prof Moyo had told her that though her country supported the liberation struggle, it had not helped set up a radio station then but was ironically doing so in independent Zimbabwe in pursuance of regime change..

Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe chairperson Dr Tafataona Mahoso said the Netherlands was in breach of International Telecommunications Union statutes.

“This is a deliberate attack on the broadcasting space of Zimbabwe and what the ambassador said is just for her expediency so that they can have a legal sounding argument with the purpose of defeating the actual law,” said Dr Mahoso.

National University of Science and Technology dean of Communication and Information Science Dr Lawton Hikwa said funding the pirate radio station created political and diplomatic problems.

“Why would one who wants to broadcast on Zimbabwean issues do it from a foreign country and not want to give Zimbabweans some form of recourse to a justice system?

“That is the problem with pirate radio stations, that in their country they may not be flouting the laws; but what makes them pirate radio stations is that they are not operating within the confines of Zimbabwe’s jurisdiction.

“This is an attitudinal diplomatic issue because Holland has some selective legalisation on marijuana but that does not necessarily make it legal in Zimbabwe,” said Dr Hikwa.

Midlands State University media lecturer Dr Nhamo Mhiripiri said Ambassador Sneller’s argument did not hold water because Dutch laws were not Zimbabwean laws.