Peru's Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTC) has maintained its arbitrary ban on Radio La Voz de Bagua, a station based in the country's northern Amazonas region, refusing on September 15 to allow it to resume broadcasting. The station has been stripped of its licence since June 6.
Radio La Voz de Bagua was accused of inciting violence in June during an outbreak of protests and rioting by local indigenous groups and clashes with the security forces. Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) believes the charges are unfounded.
According to the Institute for Press and Society (IPYS), a Peruvian NGO, the radio station has received three more communications from the ministry since July – two demands for the payment of fines for broadcasting violations in 2005 and 2007 and a legal notice concerning an irregularity in March of this year.
“No-body is fooled by the reasons advanced by the government for silencing La Voz de Bagua Grande. This comes after recent clashes in the Amazonian region between government forces and the indigenous population,” RSF had said earlier.
“Several voices, both within the police and the government, have accused the station of encouraging the riots. If this accusation was well-founded, why resort to administrative and technical arguments to justify revoking the broadcast licence of La Voz de Bagua Grande? It is an act of censorship and intimidation. We call on the government to keep its own word and to allow the station the right to resume broadcasting”, it said.
The radio station’s licence was cancelled by ministerial decree on June 8, but since March 13, 2007 it has had a ten-year frequency concession. This agreement allowed La Voz de Bagua Grande a 12-month period for authorisation and installation.
The station director, Carlos Flores Borja, said he sent the ministry the documents required for certification on January 29. This letter, supported by the municipality of Utcubamba, also said that the radio’s initial site had had to be changed for safety reasons. The ministry used this reason on December 31, 2008 to cancel the frequency authorisation before the end of the probationary period.
In fact, La Voz de Bagua Grande has been in the government’s sights since the clashes that shook the Amazon region at the start of June. At the height of the rioting, on June 5, in which around 30 people died, the interior minister, Mercedes Cabanillas, publicly threatened to close the radio along with Radio Oriente, another station based in Yurimaguas, for their alleged “support” for violence against the security forces.
