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'Terrorism of the Airwaves' as State Policy
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10196 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1986 |
1,855 Words |
| Author
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Mihajlo Mihajlov
Mihajlo Mihajlov is a special analyst for Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty covering ideological and intellectual
affairs in Eastern Europe. He is the author of Underground
Notes and other works. |
On October 11, the European Parliament condemned the jamming of Western radio stations by the governments of the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. A resolution passed by the parliament condemned jamming as a breach of human rights, a violation of the Helsinki Accords, and an extension of the Cold War that is inimical to détente.
One speaker at the parliament said the jamming of radio broadcasts was aimed at silencing any information from outside that contradicted the official propaganda of the Communist party, and compared jamming with "piracy and even terrorism of the airwaves."
At the Budapest Cultural Forum on November 8, six Western countries - the United States, Britain, France, Canada, Holland, and Belgium - sponsored a proposal calling for an end to the jamming of foreign radio broadcasts. The proposal called on the 35 states that signed the 1975 Helsinki Accords to remove all restrictions on the right of citizens to choose their sources of broadcast information.
Thus, the problem of the free flow of ideas and information has once again become an issue in current East-West affairs. However, the European Parliament resolution, as well as that proposed at the Budapest Cultural Forum, will have no effect on the decades-long jamming practice carried on by the Soviet Union and the majority of its allies. The reason for this is simple: Until now, the Soviet Union and other jammers have signed several resolutions, declarations, and conventions that clearly prohibit radio-jamming, but have not changed their practice.
The establishment of an electronic curtain against the Western world does not reflect so much the state of current East-West relations as it does the nature of communist societies. It is more difficult in these modern times to keep a monopoly of power without maintaining a monopoly of information. Historically, jamming appeared as weapon of warfare some 70 years ago, and it continues to be an element of warfare, whether the Cold War or a real war. The jamming of foreign radio broadcasts is an inevitable component of a totalitarian society, as is the absence of human rights, the Berlin Wall, "doublethinking," etc. If one day jamming should disappear from our world, it would signify that major changes had occurred in the communist world and that the threat of global conflict between the two types of societies had been radically reduced.
At present it would be possible to stop jamming if Western radio
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