SW Radios "Banned" in Zimbabwe!!


There are several reports floating around of Zimbabwe's Zanu PF Party banning shortwave radios because they may pick up broadcasts that are unfavourable to Mugabe's ruling regime. The government line is that listening to these broadcasts is illegal. Rumours have it that the police are planning to go around households and gather up all radios capable of receiving broadcasts outside its borders - i.e. shortwave radios. 

 There may be some credence to these reports and I wouldn't put it past Mugabe to try on something like this......after all, he's tried just about everything else in order to hang onto power over the years. 

 However, the attempt to ban radios is bound to prove futile. He has only to look to North Korea where we know that people regularly tune into international broadcasts, even when the penalties for engaging in this practice are quite severe. The same goes for China, who still insist on jamming certain broadcasts aimed at their country.

 Indeed, this "illegal" activity is also discussed in relation to Radio Free Sarawak, where there was a news report some weeks ago of attempts by the Malaysian government to "ban" the tuning in and listening to RFS. A fruitless exercise, to say the least!

 And we only have to think back to the days of the "Cold War" when thousands behind the Iron Curtain were kept informed of their own governments true activities and news from the outside world by stations such as Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe.
Still, the two links below make interesting reading.

 The first report is brief and comes from The Australian newspaper, reprinting an article from The Times UK newspaper:

 The Australian Online

 The second report is from SW Radio Africa and is excellent in its content detail. It's written by Violet Gonda of SW Radio Africa.

 SW Radio Africa Online

 Your thoughts on this are most welcome in this blog.

 Rob VK3BVW
Postscript Feb 23 @ 10:50 UTC:
My thanks to Ted Patterson KD0JJO/DU7 in Cebu, Philippines for alerting me to another link with a slightly different slant on this topic from the Huffington Post.

Huffington Post Online


Rob

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