3 March 2010
AMARC reaffirms effort to use community radio as a vehicle for dissent and pluralism
Community radio broadcasters from 20 countries in the Asia Pacific region met in Bangalore, India, from 20-23 February to look at the challenges to community radio and reaffirm the necessity for marginalised communities to take charge of their own means of communication, reports the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC).
Organised by AMARC in collaboration with VOICE, India, more than 300 community broadcasters, activists, NGO representatives and academics met for the second AMARC Asia Pacific Conference to build alliances with grassroots and human rights movements to strengthen community radio as a tool to put forward the rights of women, migrants, indigenous peoples and the poor. Participants also passed several resolutions, including: removing the ban on news in the recently adopted India Community radio legislation and calling on the government of Bangladesh to grant community radio licenses.
A Bangalore Declaration was drafted, making a commitment to diversity and strengthening community media, as well as to lobby governments to promote media freedom, protection of the media and journalists, among numerous other statements.
More on the web
Community radio broadcasters of Asia Pacific call for placing people's communications rights at the centre of development (AMARC)
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