The Fahazavŕna radio sanctioned by the ministry for communication23/12/2009 | 13:08:03
"...One month of suspension for the news bulletin and the political program Ampenjika". So read the sanction inflicted upon the Fahazavŕna radio, the single one station close to the ousted president Marc Ravalomanana, the single still working one.
For several weeks, partisans of the High Authority of Transition have been calling upon silencing the Fahazavàna radio for good. Andry Rajoelina's collaborators even sharply criticized the minister for communication, Nathalie Rabe, for failing to punish this radio channel belonging to the FJKM reformed church.
Now it is a done deal. The political program Ampenjika and the Fahazavàna radio's news bulletin are, henceforth, suspended for one month. Ampenjika has been granting live interventions to listeners. So the authorities used a listener's "incitation to violence" against the station to justify the sanction. The listener would have called upon political mobilities' demonstrators opposed to Rajoelina to carry and throw stones at the police forces in front of the National assembly's palace.
The minister for communication, Nathalie Rabe, intervened live on television and on national radio waves, in the evening of December 22nd, to make the sanctioning of the Fahazavàna radio public, in the name of the Superior Audiovisual Council.
Since the havoc and the closing of pro-Ravalomanana media groups as MBS and Mada, the Fahazavàna radio was the single last remaining radio station to echo demonstrations in favour of the ousted president.
Reporters have been especially invited together with artists and Malagasy sport figures to greet the president of the High Authority of Transition. Rufin Rakotomaharo, the latest president of the Journalists´ Order, produced a speech on behalf of his colleagues, in which he called upon more press freedom, the authorization to reopen TV and radio stations closed by the ruling power and the ending of the so called press crimes[See]
The TV PLUS private media station received an official warning letter. A reporter is being wanted by the state police, and not any of the stations silenced in the aftermaths of the year 2009´s putsch have been allowed to broadcast again. Hard days for the press.[See]
A number of reporters are currently in the communication ministry´s sight in the run of its intention to restore “order” in the press. The ministry´s ethics commission is so far being acting since some weeks. Minister Harry Rahajason met some of the capital city´s reporters and declared that sanctions are likely to sanction any violation of ethics and laws.[See]
Poor first step in for the Communication Ministry´s Ethics Committee. The election of the committee´s president supposed to endorse the Journalists´ order´s leadership, had to be postponed, for some members defected[See]
The minister in charge of communication is considering the erection of an ethics committee deemed to temporarily overtake the journalists’ order’s prerogatives up to the election of a new board[See]
