”Totally unacceptable,” says Sweden’s foreign minister Ms Laila Freivalds to Scandasia about the jamming by Vietnamese transmitters against Radio Sweden’s broadcasts.
Foreign Minister Freivalds took issue with Vietnam 3 February while in Hanoi on the state visit by the Swedish king and queen.
“I brought up the matter with Vietnam’s deputy prime minister Vu Khoan. He replied that he had not heard of this issue and that it was against their policy to jam broadcasts. They would however investigate the allegations and report the outcome to our embassy in Hanoi.”
Teracom, the Swedish operator which operates the transmitter and allocated frequency for Radio Sweden, tells Scandasia that they have complained in writing twice to Vietnam over the three months that have passed since they began using the 9920 kHz frequency on 26 October 2003.
The first letter was sent in November 2003 to the Vietnamese frequency regulator. The second around Christmas 2003 to Vietnam’s state owned radio.
“They responded in general terms and vaguely and then the intensity of the jamming was slightly reduced for some time. But since then jamming has resumed as before our letters,” says Mr Goran Arvedahl, deputy managing director of Teracom.
Any jamming is a breach of international regulations set up by the International Telecommunications Union, ITU, who oversees radio usage world wide.
