Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones

 The IFT and Community & Indigenous Radio Organizations have discussion panels on social use concessions

• The results of these works will be made public on the webpage of the Institute in the following days
• The conclusions of this Panel will allow the IFT to develop the draft guideline project on public and social use concessions established in the Federal Telecommunications and Broadcasting Law
• This Project will be submitted to a public consultation in due time

Officials of the Federal Telecommunications Institute (Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones, IFT) held a work meeting with representatives of organizations which include community and indigenous peoples broadcasting stations, as well as with human rights authorities to gather relevant information and recommendations to develop the draft guidelines project on concessions of public and social use.

Under the provisions of Article 85 of the Federal Telecommunications and Broadcasting Law, the general guidelines to be designed by the IFT will establish the terms in which the requirements to obtain a social use concession, are to be met. For community and indigenous people's concessions, the IFT shall provide technical assistance to facilitate compliance with such requirements, thus promoting the installation or operation of broadcasting facilities which allow the indigenous peoples to preserve their language, customs, culture and identity.

Three work panels were organized for this meeting: One with representatives of organizations that include community and indigenous people broadcasters; another one with human and indigenous rights authorities, and a third one with organizations that provide support to communities and the indigenous peoples. Each panel discussed common topics to have feedback from different perspectives.

The inauguration had the presence of the President Commissioner of the IFT, Gabriel Contreras, commissioners Adriana Labardini, María Elena Estavillo, Fernando Borjón and Mario Fromow. The attendants included representatives of the Network of Community Radio Stations of Mexico (Red de Radios Comunitarias de México A.C. or AMARC México), Networks for Diversity, Equity and Sustainability (Redes para la diversidad, equidad y sustentabilidad, A.C.), Red de comunicadores Boca de Polen, Red Acuario A.C., Mie Nillu Mazateco, A.C., and the National Congress of Indigenous Peoples Communication, as well as representatives of the National Commission for the Development of the Indigenous Peoples (Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas, CDI), the National Commission for Human Rights (Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, CNDH), the National Institute of Indigenous Languages (Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas, INALI), and Observacom.

As part of the organizations providing support to community and indigenous peoples organizations, representatives of the Mexican Association of Right to Information (Asociación Mexicana de Derecho a la Información, AMEDI), the International Association of Indigenous (Asociación Internacional de Prensa Indígena, AIPIN), and the Mexican Association of Researchers on Communication (Asociación Mexicana de Investigadores de Comunicación A. C., AMIC) were also present.

The topics discussed were:

1. Nature and purposes of the community and indigenous peoples stations. -Core and structuring elements of this kind of stations, as well as what are the purposes sought for the benefit of the community.

2. Issues and historical obstacles for the installation and operation of community and indigenous peoples broadcasting stations. - Difficulties that communities and indigenous peoples have faced in the past for the establishment and operation of these media broadcasting stations.

3. Representativeness of indigenous communities and peoples. —Mechanisms used by community and indigenous peoples media to establish their representativeness in their respective communities, addressing their goals, mores and customs, among others.

4. Expectations about the granting of social concessions to install and operate community and indigenous peoples social broadcasting stations. —Expectations about the scope of the law and the activities of the IFT to grant this type of concessions.

The results of these work panels will be published in IFT's website in the next days.