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Alert

State television resumes operation

(MFWA/IFEX) - The state-owned Ivorian Television (RTI) on August 9, 2011 resumed operations after almost five months of being off-air. The station was vandalised following a clash over its control by the Ouattara and Gbagbo forces in April.

The Media Foundation for West Africa's (MFWA) correspondent reported that after Gbagbo's capture on April 11, the government of President Alassane Ouattara operated the national television on a new station called Télé Côte d'Ivoire (TCI), set up by pro-Ouattara forces during the electoral crises.

On August 8, during the last news broadcast on TCI, Suleiman Coty Diakité, the Minister of Communications announced that RTI had replaced TCI and that the future of the TCI channel would be determined during the process of the liberalization of the airwaves.

RTI has been provided with new digital broadcasting equipment. They have a new logo and are expected to introduce new programmes in October.

MFWA is pleased with this development and reiterates its call for the government of President Ouattara to make RTI and other state media truly public service broadcasters that are editorially independent and funded in a way that protects them from arbitrary interference.