Ali Rabeh and his team raced against time to turn his online radio portal, KFM- created a week before Ben Ali fled- into an FM station, even though it is illegal.
“We have applied for a license several times since the jasmine revolution but have not received it for unknown reasons, so we have resorted to illegal broadcasting,” said Rabeh. “We will not wait any longer.”
Ali Rabeh and his team raced against time to turn his online radio portal, KFM- created a week before Ben Ali fled- into an FM station, even though it is illegal.
“We have applied for a license several times since the jasmine revolution but have not received it for unknown reasons, so we have resorted to illegal broadcasting,” said Rabeh. “We will not wait any longer.”
Rabeh was referring to the delayed establishment of the Independent High Authority of Audiovisual Communication (HAICA), which grants licenses for the establishment of radio and TV stations. HAICA’s delayed establishment – only announced two weeks ago – created a vacuum Rabeh and other radio station owners blame on the government.
Rabeh claimed that the large amounts of money paid to the public National Office of Broadcasting (ONT) without justification was a major factor that prompted some private media outlets to broadcast on their own because such amounts are a burden on these institutions already mired in financial problems.
He said the state control over radio frequencies has made broadcasting an ONT game where it could be interrupted whenever it wants. “We are not afraid of the decision consequences because we have the right to do so,” Rabeh insisted.
With our without approval
Director of ‘Radio 6’ Nazha Ben Mohammed said these radio stations have implicitly applied Decree 116 – the law regulating the audiovisual sector. “We have overthrown the ONT control over frequencies, and radio stations are now entitled to broadcast through their own means,” she explained.
Radio 6 is the first free and independent radio station. Its founder Saleh Forti applied for a license in 1987, but when the former regime’s authorities refused, the radio team started broadcasting online. However, the radio station did not escape control and repression and its website was blocked shortly after its launch in 2007, but it continued its struggle.
Legal vacuum
Media entrepreneur Rashid Khashana said before the revolution, seven applicants for radio stations licenses waited for years. “Today, however, everyone is able to establish a radio station due to the continued legal vacuum, which has encouraged the proliferation of random radio stations,” he explained.
Khashana claimed that the main reason for this vacuum is the government’s refusal to activate the media reform laws.
Regarding the pros and cons of this phenomenon, Khashana said it allows expanding the scope of freedom of expression and enables some local groups to introduce their issues and problems unaddressed by media. He however suggested that major disadvantages are a lack of censorship and professional and ethical controls, prejudgment, quickly leveling accusations, and even inaccurate or unreliable news.
Government procrastination
“A principle differs from a rule; while the former ensures everyone the right to have a media outlet, the latter binds radio stations to a framework regulating their FM broadcast, based on freedom of expression and communication of news. If such a framework is found, there will be no illegal radio stations,” said Hisham Sanusi, Manager of the Tunis branch of Article 19 Organization and a HAICA member.
Sanusi says Tunisia has long experienced a legislative vacuum in the field of media, and suggested that the government took a too long to establish the amending commission. He believes that these radio stations have been established because they are forced to, not for a desire to appear, and he blames the government “because it contributes to consolidating the culture of lawlessness.”
Nothing new
President of the National Union of Free Radio Stations, Saleh Forti, said the phenomenon of illegal radio stations is not new or exclusive to post-revolutionary Tunisia. They emerged with the birth of the first private radio station, “because the five private ones that were in place before the revolution broadcasted without licenses in the beginning and were not held accountable because their owners were close to the former regime or the ousted president’s family.”
Forti believes that state monopoly of frequencies is long gone, because Ben Ali used it as a weapon to muzzle free voices. “We have struggled for several decades in order to establish freedom of expression and it is our duty today to encourage such radio stations to communicate their voice,” he said.
Respect for the law
ONT has on many occasions stressed that frequencies are a public property and scarce resources, emphasizing that the disposal of them is a task of the National Agency of Frequencies and that ONT, as a public institution, ensures radio and television programs, broadcasting according to the law of its foundation and the Communication Act.
With the establishment of HAICA, after a long tug of war between the government and the defenders of press freedom, Ali Rabeh and other seekers of illegal broadcasting will have to reconsider their choices. HAICA says a book of conditions on licensing radio and TV stations is being developed, which shall be applied to all.
