Being Heard / JO

Being Heard
March 01, 2009

Words by Alexandra Hazlett.

Getting from Amman to the Jordan Valley can be harder than you think—but two local radio broadcasters have gone to extraordinary lengths to get their show on the air.

THE ABU OBAIDAH SCHOOL in the Jordan Valley is at least 20 years old, and “might fall down at any time,” says Moneera Shati, a radio journalist based in the area. Cloth sheets cover the gaping holes where doors should be. Snakes and scorpions get into the classrooms through cracks in the walls, and the roof is a simple sheet of corrugated metal. The bathrooms are outside.

Every year, the local fundraiser to repair the school is mysteriously canceled, Shati continues, but when she tries to ask why, the Ministry of Education won’t return her phone calls.
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Shati, 25, and her colleague Asma Raja, 24, report, produce and broadcast a weekly radio program called Voice of the Valley. Aired Sundays at noon on Radio Al Balad, in Amman, the show focuses on farming and social issues important to the people in the Jordan Valley (known locally as the Ghor).


“We look toward the crises of the community in the Ghor,” says Raja.
She and Shati choose all the stories featured on the program, paying careful attention to the concerns of their audience, whose voices they are trying to represent.


“People say ‘we like the radio station because it talks about our problems.’ They like the idea that someone is listening to them,” Raja says. Both women spoke to JO with the assistance of a translator.


The distance between the Jordan Valley and the city of Amman is more than physical. The Ammani press and print media tend to gloss over issues important in the Ghor, and the amount of government oversight is considerably lessened, Raja says.


But there is an unintended advantage to broadcasting in Amman: ministers and other government officials can hold their counterparts in the valley accountable for failures in regulation and development.


“Broadcasting in Amman has been a bonanza, because the ministers are here,” says Daoud Kuttab, the director of AmmanNet Radio, which also runs Radio Al Balad where Voice of the Valley is aired. But there is one big problem with broadcasting in Amman: it can’t be heard in the Ghor.



All new radio stations must be licensed by the government—first by the Audiovisual Commission, Kuttab explains, and then by the full Cabinet. In a seemingly inexplicable turn of events, Shati and Raja’s application to broadcast in the Valley was denied on January 27.
The Audiovisual Commission did not return requests for comment. The Cabinet, Kuttab says, is not required to give a reason for the rejection.


“If we knew why [we were rejected], we would fix it,” he says, adding that the process is counter-productive to investment in media. “We went through hoops for a year to get all the requirements done.”


The World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters, which held its 9th World Conference in Amman in 2006, and originally helped train Shati and Raja, called the decision a “major setback for freedom of expression and media pluralism in Jordan,” in a recent press release.
While Raja and Shati said they did not want to talk about the application rejection, Kuttab said the decision was even more confusing because it runs counter to recent statements by HM King Abdullah II encouraging improvements in women’s awareness. To add another layer to the question, 2009 was proclaimed the Year of Farming and Farming awareness, which is a key element in the show's programming.



But complicated problems demand innovative solutions. For the past 14 months, “Voice of the Valley” has been working in collaboration with Radio Al Qamr, in Palestine. After the program is broadcast in Amman on Sundays, it is uploaded to AmmanNet’s web site, where Radio Al Qamr downloads it and then rebroadcasts it on Tuesdays at 11am. Radio Al Qamr, unlike Radio Al Balad, can be “heard perfectly in the Ghor,” Raja says. Similar cultures, climate, and relevant issues are another reason collaboration with the Palestinian radio station made sense.



Many of the issues discussed on Voice of the Valley have to do with farming, irrigation, land and water use, and different agricultural techniques. For example, during periods of heavy rains, the station reported on how the sewer system in the Ghor was overflowing and flooding fields, ruining the crops planted there, Raja said.


The role Shati and Raja are playing as women in the Ghor has not escaped their notice. When they first started reporting, male journalists in the area were surprised to see women with no formal journalistic training looking into these issues. In an area heavily bound by tradition, having a woman talking about local issues, broadcasting, and doing interviews is very important, Raja says.


Both women were trained in AmmanNet’s offices, following the community radio broadcasters' conference in 2006. There they learned basic reporting, editing and packaging skills, and both women think of themselves as journalists, even without the formal training of many of their peers. Raja, who initially studied to become a medical secretary at Amman Training College, says she has always been interested in journalism. Shati became interested in while studying finance at Arab Community College, and noticed that when she read the paper there were never any stories from the Ghor.


While Raja said there has not been any backlash against their work from locals in the Valley, Kuttab said that the pair do face some pressure from officials who are embarrassed or annoyed by their work.“They’re very courageous, they’re tough,” he said of Raja and Shati, “they’re the best thing about this operation.”

Women make waves in Jordan Valley

Suha Philip Ma’ayeh, Foreign Correspondent


AMMAN //For the past year, Muneera Shatti and Asma Raja, two young women from the Jordan Valley, have broadcast a weekly radio show that tackles the issues faced by their impoverished community, from a lack of buses and the theft of water, to boys using mobile phones to take photos of schoolgirls.The work is not without challenges as the tribal-dominated valley on which they report is staunchly conservative and one of 20 pockets of poverty where the average income is about US$1,800 (Dh6,624) per year.



“At first there were men who refused to be interviewed by us. They would say, ‘You are women’. But they got used to us. Just last week I interviewed young men in a cafe to gauge their views regarding public services,” Ms Shatti said. “Interviewing men is something I would have never imagined myself doing before I became a correspondent for the radio.”In one programme, Ms Shatti reported on the lack of buses connecting her town with a nearby village. Within a week, the Jordan Valley Authority responded and provided the needed bus.



“That was encouraging even though later the bus was taken away as other bus drivers protested that it was affecting their business.”In another broadcast, Ms Raja, 24, reported on water theft. “Farmers were stealing water from the main pipes, depriving residents of drinking water. I talked to a senior water official who promised to provide citizens with another source of water while the government closed some of the pipes to try to stop those from stealing. Since then, water theft has declined.”



Because the women do not have a licence to broadcast in their community, Radio Al Balad, an Amman-based community radio, produces and hosts their show, called the Voice of the Valley. The women take three buses to get to Amman to broadcast the show, but for them, the trip is worth it.Radio Al Balad has been pushing hard to get a licence to launch the first all-women community radio in Jordan.But last month, the government turned down the licence application without giving a reason. The country’s laws do not oblige the government to explain why it rejects applications.



The decision, however, has frustrated Daoud Kuttab, the founder of Radio Al Balad, who has been trying to launch Zaharat Alghor, the Flower of the Valley, which would not broadcast news or political programmes. “We were excited. It is a station run by women. It was supposed to be a women empowerment station. We were already seeing success in the one-hour programme,” he said. “If the government did not want to give us a licence, then why entertain our application in the first place? It took us a year and a half to fulfil the requirements of the application, including paying $15,000 for the initiation licence fee. We rented offices [in the Jordan Valley], too.”
In 2002, Jordan liberalised its airwaves and a year later created an audiovisual commission tasked with licensing independent satellite and radio stations. Since then, 26 independent stations have been granted licences, most of whom provide music, entertainment and social programmes. Seven have licences for news and political programmes.It is 50 per cent more expensive to get a licence for a news and political broadcast because, according to insiders, the AVC believes the latter generates more advertisements, while sceptics see it as another restriction on media freedom.



It is the second time in two years that the government has rejected an application by Mr Kuttab for a community radio licence, raising some speculation that the decision was motivated by personal reasons. Conservative officials are concerned that community radio in a traditional society could create problems among tribes and upset their social and cultural values.Mr Kuttab has also been criticised for allowing Palestinian refugees from Gaza to make their plea for citizenship on his radio programmes. Jordan sees such a policy as serving the interest of Israel because the refugees would then no longer be able to apply to return to Israel.



Because Radio Al Balad is licensed to broadcast only in Amman, residents in the Jordan Valley can only hear the programme by tuning into Al Qamr radio station in Jericho, a West Bank city on the other side of the Jordan Valley. Mr Kuttab had signed an agreement with Al Qamr to rebroadcast the show until he was able to obtain a licence. The programme can also be heard online, but only 16 per cent of Jordanian households have internet access.


Mr Kuttab has made it clear in editorials and blogs that he is not happy with the AVC’s decision. But Hussein Bani Hani, the AVC head, argued the government had acted in the interest of investors.“The government wants to give a chance for every investor. We want to give equal opportunities to all,” he said. “All the governorates are covered with radio stations, and we have community stations in several universities that also provide training for university students on media broadcasting.


“The stations tackle different subjects in different communities and broadcast social programmes which vary from women and child issues to youth issues. They are funded by organisations involved in media development.”Although the community radio stations have been welcomed in most areas, there are some criticism that they are not completely independent. Ms Shatti and Ms Raja were discouraged at first by the government’s decision not to grant them a licence. They closed the offices that Radio Al Balad had rented for them last week. But the women said they will continue to broadcast from Amman.


“I will not let the licence get me down. I will continue to work to make the voices of people in remote areas heard,” Ms Raja said.