Vietnam joins the jammers
Editorial broadcast by Voice of America Feb. 24, 1997
Vietnam has joined the small number of countries that defy universal standards by jamming international broadcasts. This month, Radio Free Asia began its first broadcasts in the Vietnamese language. Within days, the Vietnamese government announced that it was jamming the broadcasts. Jamming was detected at monitoring stations in two separate locations in Southeast Asia. But the Radio Free Asia signal could still be heard in some parts of Vietnam.
The Vietnamese government's jamming is contrary to internationally recognized fundamental rights. As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights makes clear in article Nineteen, "Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." The right to receive international broadcasts is crucial to the Vietnamese people because they cannot rely on the media in their own country to provide them with accurate, objective news. THe Communist Party, government and Party-controlled mass organizations control domestic print and electronic media, while foreign publications are censored.
Other countries that jam international broadcasts are China, North Korea, Iran and Cuba. The Chinese government jams Mandarin language broadcasts of the Voice of America and the British Broadcasting Corporation. China also jams V-O-A's Tibetan language broadcasts. Transmitters in Iran are jamming some of V-O-A's Farsi language broadcasts. And for years, the Cuban dictatorship has been jamming broadcasts of Radio and Television Marti.
Despite the jamming, tens of millions of listeners still manage to receive transmissions from international broadcasters. They refuse to be blocked from learning about what is going on in their own countries and the rest of the world. As President Bill Clinton has said, "We live in an age where channels of communications are multiplying all the time - from the shortwave radio to satellites...from phone to fax to the internet. Let us use these tools," said President Clinton, "To share the benefits of wisdom, learning and cooperation with one another."
Source: Voice of America