Seven RAM-FM Radio Staff released but still under gag as police investigation continues

At one minute after ten o’clock on Tuesday, the seven RAM-FM radio staff members arrested in a police raid on their Jerusalem studio a week ago were released from “house arrest” which confined them to Jerusalem — even if their houses were not in Jerusalem — by order of Jerusalem District Court.

But they remain under gag orders barring them from speaking to each other about the case, while the police investigation continues. 

In another week, they will be allowed to return to work.

No charges have yet been filed.

The original accusations, contained in a complaint filed by Israel’s Ministry of Communications. state that the Ramallah-based radio station had been broadcasting illegally in Israel, with the possibility of “potentially interfere with airport and flight radio frequencies”.  The second part of the accusation was dropped within days. 

A press release posted on the Ministry’s website said, astonishingly, that “The station’s employees also admitted in their police interrogation that they had been broadcasting with no license, illegally”. 

A RAM-FM official who was not arrested believes that no member of the staff did, in fact, admit any such thing during their interrogations. 

The seven arrested staff members were thrown into jail overnight, and were questioned without the presence of any legal assistance, before being hauled into court in shackles and chains to post bond the following day.

Station manager Maysoun Odeh-Gangat, who was not present at the start of the raid but arrived after being alerted of what was happening, was arrested after volunteering to the police to be taken in place of the radio staff who just happened to be on the premises at the time.  The police then took Odeh-Gangat into custody as well. 

Others arrested included two Israelis (on air personality Mike Brand and Tyson Harberger); the station’s South African News Director, Mark Klusener; and three Palestinians: technician Francis “Franco” Battiha, on-air personality Arda Aghazarian, and reporter Ashira Ramadan. 

The RAM-FM studio space, in the Technology Tower in Malha in West Jerusalem, was in fact leased – as are also Al-Jazeera’s studios – from an Israeli broadcasting services company, CONTACT, which transmitted feeds from RAM-FM (and Al-Jazeera as well) on a microwave link to a receiver in Ramallah. 

Some of this material included interviews with Israeli citizens who are all barred by military order from traveling to Areas A of the Palestinian Authority, including Ramallah, where the RAM-FM studios are located.

These recordings were then edited and incorporated into programming that included RAM-FM’s Middle East Eyewitness News reports.

In addition, two RAM-FM shows were entirely produced in Jerusalem and sent simultaneously by CONTACT to Ramallah where they were nearly immediately broadcast by RAM-FM on two frequencies which were both properly licensed by the Palestinian Authority after consultation by the appropriate Palestinian ministries with their Israeli counterparts.  The two frequencies were the main, original 93.6 FM frequency sent out by a powerful 5 Khz transmitter, and a second frequency, 87.7 FM, which was added to help resolve reception problems in several areas of Jerusalem .

One of the two programs that had been produced in Jerusalem from the beginning of RAM-FM operations was the 12 noon to 3 pm Mike & Arda Show, during which the police raid occurred on Monday 7 April.  The Jerusalem staff immediately handed over over to the Ramallah studio, and the raid was not heard on air.

The other program that was being produced in Jerusalem was the 6 to 9 am Breakfast Show with newly-hired deejay Martin B.  He is now working from Ramallah, because the Jerusalem studios remain closed, and its state-of-the-art equipment that was ripped out of the walls remains confiscated, in uncertain condition.

The Minister of Communication, Ariel Atias, is a Member of Knesset from the Shas Party, who is described on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website as born in Tel Aviv and general manager of Shas’ kosher supervision organization.  Wikipedia says he resides in Jerusalem.

The statement on the website of the Ministry of Communications also says that “The station has positioned in Jerusalem a transmitter to amplify the reception of its broadcasts. Once the station was using a wireless transmitter, positioned at the Crowne Plaza Hotel without a license, its broadcasting activity has in effect become illegal, and the studio, a piratical radio station.  Had the broadcasting studio been operating in a way similar to those of the stations broadcasting from Israel to the world (CNN, Al Jazeera and others), without using the amplifier, the Ministry of Communications would not have intervened.  Ministry of Communications, Wireless Communications Inspection unit has filed a complaint to Police, who in turn confiscated broadcasting equipment at the station, while verifying a direct link between the transmitter confiscated and the station’s illegal broadcasting activity”. 

A RAM-FM official told this reporter that the station had no equipment in the Crowne Plaza Hotel (which is located just across from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs). 

The Ministry of Communications statement also states that it “has been investing big efforts in fighting this grave problem of illegal radio broadcasting throughout Israel, regardless of the broadcast content and the identity of the piratical stations”. 

Yet, no observer could recall such harsh and severe repressive action against the staff of any other accused radio station – many of which are apparently settler radio stations broadcasting from the West Bank which have be found to be interfering with air traffic control operations at Ben Gurion Airport. 

Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a previous Minister of Communications, has not yet spoken out about the type of treatment that RAM-FM has been subjected to, despite private expressions of concern from his office.

RAM-FM, which maintains that it did not operate illegally — and that it is most certainly not a pirate radio station – says it intends to clarify the matter through the justice system, to recover its equipment, and to clear the names and records of the station and its staff.

Transmissions on the second frequency intended for Jerusalem listeners will resume within days.

In the hour before the release, one of RAM-FM’s top personalities, Raf Gangat, began his regular morning show with a selection of tunes having a common theme, and offered a special double prize to the first call-in listener who could guess what it was.

The tunes included songs with lyrics such as: “I’m begging you for mercy, why won’t you release me?”, and titles such as “Freedom” and “An Innocent Man”.