Q FM Africa's Modern Radio
The Three Church Mother Bodies namely Council of Churches in Zambia (CCZ), Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia (EFZ) and Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops (ZCCB) have joined in condemning the suspension of Prime TV’s broadcasting license by the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) for thirty days.
In a statement obtained by Q-news, the church mother bodies have described the suspension of Prime TV as hypocritical and undemocratic.
They say the decision by the Independent Broadcasting Authority as is not only embarrassing to the Government, but also shows how dead the consciences of those in Government have become.
They state that it is clear for every well-meaning Zambian to draw a line between the Government owned media institutions and Prime TV in terms of professional and balanced coverage of news in the country.
The church mother bodies say it is also their view that the grounds IBA has used to suspend the broadcasting license of Prime TV must have been applied first on the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC), Zambia Daily Mail and Times of Zambia before applying them on any other media house.
They further state that it is hypocritical to allow the suspension of a broadcasting license of a Private Media House when Government owned and controlled media outlets have miserably been unprofessional and unethical in the manner they cover news in the country, more especially during election times.
They note that as a country that aspires to be Christian, they strongly believe that both Government and IBA need to have recourse to the biblical principle as enshrined in the Gospel of Mathew 7:3-5 that a man cannot remove a speck from their brother’s eye when they themselves have not first removed the plunk from their own eye.
They have since called upon the IBA to seriously consider lifting the suspension of the broadcasting license of Prime TV with immediate effect and allow the media house to operate freely without any intimidation.