'Boere' station wins appeal

The Independent Communication Authority of SA (Icasa) must reconsider Radio Pretoria's application for a broadcasting licence, the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled on Friday.

The station is a community radio station catering for "boere-Afrikaners".

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Johannesburg - Radio Pretoria "for Boere-Afrikaners" will take legal advice on the loss of its four-year licence to broadcast, the station said on Friday.

The station said the Independent Communications Authority of SA had taken more than a year to provide reasons for its refusal.

According to Radio Pretoria, Icasa's reasons were the same as those for the refusal of its one-year licence:

# that the directors of the section 21 (not-for-profit) company running the station were not democratically chosen; and

# that the station employed no "volksvreemdes" (aliens), by which they presumably meant people of colour.

The station said Icasa had added three new reasons:

# that the directors were not representative of the "Boere-Afrikaner" community in the Bronkhorstspruit-Cullinan area;

# that decision-making positions were not about equally held by men and women; and

# that there was no need for a station such as Radio Pretoria, as it did not add anything extra to the offerings of Radio Sonder Grense, the Afrikaans language service of the SABC.

In rebuttal, Radio Pretoria said:

# it had broadcast legally for 10 years into a much-larger area than just Bronkhorstspruit-Cullinan;

# no institution in South Africa had yet achieved a 50% representation of women; and

# anyone listening to its broadcasts and those of RSG would easily notice the difference between them.

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