Legalising community radio in Mexico

The struggle for community radio's legal recognition in Mexico began in 2002, when several unlicensed community radio stations came under threat. The book Con Permiso describes and analyses the process through which community radio in Mexico obtained legal recognition, despite opposition from the owners of the most powerful commercial media in the country, Televisa and TV Azteca.

In 2000, President Vicente Fox's National Action Party (PAN) won the Mexican election, taking over from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which had been in power for 70 years and had prevented freedom of expression. After the election, citizen's groups demanded reform of the Radio and Television Act, the right to freedom of expression and the need to limit private media concentration in the hands of corporations such as Televisa.

Initially, there was optimism. A multi-stakeholder discussion forum was established in 2001, which included legislators, representatives of political parties, academics, media owners and citizen groups. The demand for community radio recognition was presented, along with other proposals for reform and democratisation of the media. The government appeared to accept the case for reform and for a short time the practice of closing existing community radio stations without a license was suspended.

Behind the scenes, however, lobbying of the federal government by commercial broadcasters produced a new radio and television decree weighted strongly in their favour. Persecution of the community radio stations started again and community broadcasters such as Radio Jën Poj reported military raids and violent closures of stations.

The experience of Mexican broadcasting highlights the challenge communities faced in their struggle for the right to freedom of expression and information - an internationally guaranteed right and one the government could not set aside:

• In 2003 both the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights intervened with recommendations to the Mexican government to cease the persecution of community radio and to provide proper operating licenses.
• At a hearing of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights in March 2004, the Mexican government accepted that community radio was a human rights issue and undertook to establish a process for legal recognition of not-for-profit community radio stations serving indigenous people and rural and marginalised communities.
• The recent history of community radio in Mexico can be seen as directly related to the transition in power since, for over 70 years, Mexico had been a one-party state.

Despite desperate efforts by commercial broadcasters to persuade President Vicente Fox to abandon the licensing plans, the first two community radio licenses were awarded in December 2004 and nine more have been awarded since.

Community radio's experience in Mexico demonstrates how a movement made up of alliances between intellectuals, journalists, public officials, mass media and human rights groups achieved, after more than 40 years of radio and television legislation, permission from the state for indigenous peoples, rural and urban communities to have their own radio.

Aleida Calleja
Comunicación Comunitaria
T +52 56 598 652
F +52 55 548 783
aleidda@prodigy.net.mx

Con Permiso: La radio comunitaria en Mexico by Aleida Calleja and Beatriz Solis, Fundacion Freidrich Ebert, Mexico 2005

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