SOH News

SOH Protests Interference against Its SW Broadcast to China

KILL EVIL DRAGON

[Sound-of-Hope Radio Network, Press Release August 2, 2005] Sound-of-Hope Radio Network established its shortwave broadcast over mainland China in June 2004. Currently, there is a 4-hour daily shortwave broadcast in 3 frequencies that cover a majority of regions throughout China. Many listeners in mainland China have provided very positive feedback, claiming that SOH offers an important radio broadcast that helps mainland Chinese people receive the most truthful, factual and accurate information about China and abroad.

However, over the past several months, SOH has received much feedback from China indicating that the 4-hour daily shortwave broadcast is now being seriously interfered with by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Listeners cannot receive the radio signals as before. Here are three examples: Listeners from Dalian City (Liaoning Province) stated that they could receive the SOH broadcast in the past, but recently the signals are almost completely covered by music, drumming and other programs from China¡¯s central radio station; listeners from Fuzhou City (Fujian Province) reported that they could no longer receive the broadcast even in an open field in the outdoors; listeners from Xinjiang, Sichuan, Shandong Province also strongly complained that SOH programs are specifically targeted by interference, since the radio signals at the same frequencies resumed to normal after the SOH program airtime is over.

In 2004, Reporters Without Borders reported that the Thales Group, a corporation based in France, sold to China many military-class devices used for radio signal jamming for the disruption of foreign broadcasts over China. An internal source of information inside China has indicated that the National Security Bureau, Public Security Bureau, and the General Military Intelligence Sector II are the official bureaus in charge of monitoring and censoring foreign radio broadcasts. Of these agencies, the General Military Intelligence Sector II coordinates technical issues. These coordinated actions have severely trampled the rights to obtain information freely for billions of Chinese people.

Currently, SOH has become the top target for interference by the Chinese Communist Party. The CCP has engaged a full range of interference to block the SOH shortwave programming. The intensity of the interference has surpassed the partial and temporal interference that Radio France International, BBC, VOA and Radio Free Asia have experienced. It is certain that this is due to the exclusive and complete broadcast of the ¡°Nine Commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party¡± (a series of editorials published by the Epoch Times Newspaper), as well as the SOH¡¯s extensive reports covering the unprecedented evolving current phenomena of millions of Chinese people choosing to publicly (or secretly) quit the CCP.

In order to provide more convenient communication channels for the Chinese people, SOH also offers toll-free numbers for mainland listeners. This service is greatly embraced by many listeners. After SOH dedicated a full hour to broadcast the ¡°Nine Commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party, ever more listeners responded with enthusiasm and gave feedback via the toll-free numbers. However, these toll-free numbers were cut-off abruptly by the CCP from December 24 to December 26, 2004.

Sound-of-hope Radio Network strongly protests the intensive interference
applied by the CCP on SOH radio signals as well as the abrupt termination of toll-free numbers service that SOH utilized to communicate with listeners. These actions are against the principle of freedom of press and seriously breach the regulations of international radio broadcasting norms. SOH calls for public condemnation of the CCP for depriving the Chinese people of their right to obtain information as well as the CCP’s use of Chinese tax money to purchase the jamming devices which block radio signals. SOH also calls for the support of international communities, such as International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and Reporters Without Borders, to urge China to stop its interference of SOH radio signals.

Recently, SOH was informed of CCP special missions to apply spying maneuvers against independent media agencies abroad. Reliable sources in China learned and reported to SOH that the Pubic Security Bureau Sector 26 has recruited members from public security departments of provincial and city levels in nine provinces whose objective is to infiltrate, collect information, and create conflict and chaos amidst certain overseas Chinese language media. SOH has discovered that it is one of the main targets of this special spying mission.

SOH strongly condemns all these spying activities in which the CCP has enacted in order to buy, infiltrate, divide, and suppress independent media abroad in efforts to control overseas Chinese communities via CCP ideology. SOH calls for the immediate attention and a thorough investigation of these CCP spying activities occurring in Western Democratic countries.

SOH urges overseas Chinese media to unite, and together guard against CCP efforts to financially usurp and infiltrate; and to speak out in protection of the rights to obtain and disseminate information freely so that all Chinese people can participate and exercise their voice which otherwise would be unheard. It is for this reason that independent media must fulfill its precious responsibility as a free press.

Sound-of-Hope Radio Network
August 2, 2005