New RFE/RL service to South Ossetia and Abkhazia begins, with target hinting of "technical means to hinder."

"Radio Liberty begins broadcast in Abkhazia and Tskinvali breakaway Regions today. The Georgian producers of the radio say that on November 2, the first one-hour long program will broadcast in the air of the Radio Liberty`s local branch Echo of the Caucasus. The audio of the program will be available on the radio web site, which will be opened today. A team of five reporters work for the Echo of the Caucasus in the Prague. The editors say that the parts of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali Regions, including Gali district, will be able to listen to the programs of the Radio Liberty on the frequency of the Radio Green Wave. 'As for the threats of the Sokhumi puppet regime that they will suppress the broadcast, they should know that we do not need licence for broadcast. In addition, this is not the issue of political character, we`ll broadcast only news programs,' Davit Kakabadze, the Georgian producer of the radio Liberty has said." The Georgian Times, 2 November 2009.
     "The South Ossetian authorities will prevent the broadcasting of Radio Liberty in the republic's territory, the chairman of the state committee for information and mass communications of the republic of South Ossetia, Georgiy Kabisov, has told the Regnum news agency while commenting on reports that Radio Liberty's Georgian service planned to premier the [Russian-language] programme 'Caucasus Echo' ['Ekho Kavkaza'] in South Ossetia on 2 November. According to Kabisov, South Ossetian government bodies have not received any requests from the leadership of Radio Liberty asking for permission to broadcast in the republic's territory. 'Claims by the Georgian service of Radio Liberty that they supposedly, by virtue of some specific circumstances, don't need any permission in order to broadcast are legally groundless,' Kabisov said. 'There are generally accepted standards for the work of media outlets, and if Radio Liberty does not deem it necessary to adhere to them, then this should be regarded as an informational provocation.' 'If the leadership of the radio station nonetheless decides to broadcast without permission in South Ossetian territory, we will be forced to use our technical means to hinder that,' Kabisov said. Regnum news agency (Moscow), 2 November 2009, translated by BBC Monitoring. See previous post about same subject. Posted: 03 Nov 2009 Permalink Print