argia.eus
INPRIMATU
Patriarchy and freedom of the press
Nekane Txapartegi 2021eko apirilaren 20a

The LoRa radio is a reference in and around Zürich. It has been issuing non-commercial and multilingual radios for almost forty years, with activists for activists, migrants for migrants, solidarity for prisoners in prison and asylum centres. LoRa is polarizing, feminist, its formats clearly question power and, therefore, it is surely offensive to the Zurich police apparatus. In the protests on March 8 on Women’s Day*, RADIA, LoRa’s feminist writing, went to the streets to get directly informed of the meetings and demonstrations and continue to denounce by microphones the machista violence against women*. We are feminist journalists and from this perspective we inform through microphones, the street and studies.

"I don't like what you do on your radio," we do by a police officer. ‘Less bad, that’s our
goal’, I myself.”

“I don’t like what you do on your radio,” we do by a police officer. “Less bad, that’s our goal,” I myself ... Proof of this “taste” is the abuse of power that we suffered in those days: ‘radiak’, as feminist journalists call us, tried to drive us back and forth from the initiatives. When a radia questioned a Kurdish woman about the repression they suffer in the street by the police, she also controlled her and insulted her: to see what she says when she talks about Racial Profiling...A group of policemen took from their arms and carried in the air another radia, when she was announcing a beating against a girl... The police did not witness their repression, and actively hampered our work, violating the freedom of the press. Feminist journalists, persecuted through male police officers, were controlled and we constantly received verbal bans to be on the spot. The patriarchal apparatus of state wanted us to silence and fold ourselves.

Repression continued in the coming days, including our work. In the acts against femicide in Switzerland, where two women are murdered weekly since the beginning of the year, they prevented us from recording radions and took us by pulling our arm to identify us. Also in the demonstration called against police repression, we made our protest with microphones, and the police signed us up and threatened us with complaints.

In a society in which patriarchal and racist structures continue to have a great influence, feminist journalism is fundamental. That is why we will continue to be oblivious to our microphones and to inform ourselves of the feminist perspective, being a counter-apoder! Here in Euskal Herria and anywhere!