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afrol.com, 3 October - The "Herald" newspaper has reported that Capitol Radio, Zimbabwe's first private radio station, has begun broadcasting, a week after the Supreme Court struck down the law giving the government a monopoly over the airwaves. Following the Supreme Court's landmark ruling on September 22, which nullified Sections 27 and 28 of the Broadcasting Act, the government responded by saying it would comply with the ruling and had already started drawing up regulatory mechanisms. The regulatory board would be set up to grant licences to deserving applications. The broadcasting licence, however, would not necessarily guarantee an applicant the right to run a broadcasting station as applicants would need to get a radio and television station operating licence from the Post and Telecommunications Regulatory Board (PTCB). The PTCB, however, will start granting licences only from January 2001. According to the "Herald" source, the station began broadcasting on September 29. This was confirmed by Mike Auret, one of the owners of the station. Auret told the Zimbabwe branch of the Media Institute of Southern Africa, MISA, that while the station had been broadcasting musical programmes and the station's identity since Friday 29 September, it began broadcasting live programmes on Sunday 1 October. The "Herald" reported that the Minister of State for Information and Publicity, Jonathan Moyo, had expressed grave concern about what he referred to as "pirate radio stations" broadcasting within the country in contravention of the law. He said the relevant authorities were making full investigations to identify such broadcasters and their broadcasting locations with a view to taking appropriate remedial action. Auret told MISA-Zimbabwe that the station was ready to go back to the Supreme Court if the government tried to stop its operations. Meanwhile, government lawyers and consultants working on new broadcasting regulations have dismissed reports in the "Finacial Gazette" that claimed the new regulations would be tough. The lawyers told the "Herald" newspaper that although the Supreme Court had declared sections of the Broadcasting Act unconstitutional, it had not done away with the Post and Telecommunications authority's function of issuing licences for broadcasting and other transmission equipment. They also denied allegations that any broadcaster who slighted the name of the President would be liable to a Zim$2-million fine. The Minister of State for Information and Publicity, Jonathan Moyo, in August said his Government did not want a "broadcasting jungle" and that there was a great need to "control broadcasting" because people would start broadcasting "pornographic and beastly material". He went to on to say that broadcasting was for Zimbabweans and that the government should limit foreign control in the broadcasting sector.
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