Published by: World Tibet Network News Saturday, October 18, 1997

WASHINGTON, Oct 16 (AFP) - The Chinese government has begun jamming Tibetan-language broadcasts by Radio Free Asia (RFA), executive editor Daniel Southerland said Thursday.

Monitors in New Delhi and Almaty reported jamming of the RFA shortwave signal in Tibetan on Oct. 13 and Oct. 2 and 9 respectively, Southerland said in an interview.

"It takes a while to evaluate the extent of the jamming," he said. "We're still getting through, and not all frequencies are being jammed."

Listeners can try to compensate by moving radios closer to windows or readjusting their antennas, Southerland said, noting that RFA also periodically changes its broadcast frequency.

China has criticized RFA -- a nonprofit corporation funded by the US government and charged with broadcasting to Asian countries that lack a free press -- and jammed its Mandarin-language service in the past.

But the service, which employs about 70 Asia-based stringers, nonetheless receives a large volume of mail from listeners able to tune in to the seven languages in which RFA broadcasts.

Apart from Mandarin and Tibetan, RFA also broadcasts in Burmese, Khmer, Vietnamese, Lao, and Korean. The service began transmitting, from Central Asia and the Pacific, in September 1996.