“Indigenous voices tell compelling stories of how they are combating centuries of injustice and discrimination.”

By María Teresa Aveggio, Programme Manager

		A new law (4479) proposed by Guatemala’s Lider party intends to reform the country’s criminal code in order to sanction the imprisonment of individual actors and representatives of radio stations that do not have legal authority to broadcast. This move came on 10July 2012, just one month before UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon highlighted the vital role of media in empowering the world’s indigenous people by challenging stereotypes, forging indigenous peoples’ identities, communicating with the non-Indigenous world and influencing the social and political agendas. Many of the existing community radio stations in Guatemala serve the needs of Indigenous people, who constitute around 40.5% of the total population. They would be severely penalized by the proposed new law which would change them from legal entities into illegal ones.
Photo: Inside the radio booth at La Voz de Palestina. © Danielle DeLuca (Culturalsurvival)

Currently, community stations exist in a form of limbo where they are not protected under the law nor are they penalized. Some Indigenous community radio stations have been able successfully to challenge charges against them.

According to the organization Cultural Survival, the real aim of the bill is to take community radio stations that are fighting for legal recognition completely off the air (http://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/guatemala-new-bill-would-criminalize-community-radio).

Community radio movement has a long history in Guatemala and in the 1990s WACC was present at the beginning of that movement when it provided funding support to the country’s original association of community radio stations (ACCG).

The Community Radio Movement of Guatemala is asking the international community to take action and to write to Guatemala’s congressmen to vote down the proposed change in the criminal code. The Spanish version of the call to action can be accessed at http://www.culturalsurvival.org/files/denuncia_4479_carta_0.pdf

WACC supports communication rights for all and believes that these rights invoke spaces and resources in the public sphere for everyone to be able to engage in transparent, informed and democratic debate. On International Day of the World’s Indigenous People (August 9) WACC called on civil society organizations and governments to support community radio in an effort to advance the democratic participation and active citizenship of Indigenous peoples.

Events in Guatemala demonstrate that the need to support community radio is a must for those people and institutions that support democratic participation and active citizenship by all sectors of society.

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