Steven Friedman, writing in Business Day yesterday, argued that journalists do not have much to fear from the proposed Protection of Information Bill. In the process of making an excellent point, namely that those that will be the hardest hit if the Bill is passed will be ordinary citizens who wish to engage in grassroots [...]
Posts under ‘corruption’
Why now?
There is no doubt that the media is facing the greatest threat to its freedom since the advent of democracy. The proposed Protection of Information Bill and Media Appeals Tribunal, the proposed Protection from Harassment Bill (which thankfully seems to have been put on hold), the proposed Independent Communications Authority of South Africa Amendment Bill [...]
Would Media Appeals Tribunal be constitutional?
Many people have asked me whether the proposed Media Appeals Tribunal (MAP) would pass constitutional muster. We already know that the proposal for a MAP is wrongheaded, self-serving, deeply reactionary and unnecessary. But if Parliament passed a law that further limited the freedom of the printed media to publish what it deems important, and if [...]
Why the Hawks?
Last week members of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (also known as the Hawks) swooped on the offices of the Sunday Times and arrested Mzilikazi wa Africa. Reports suggest that he was arrested for fraud, uttering and defeating the ends of justice for being in possession of a letter purporting to be a resignation [...]
What do we talk about when we talk about “transformation”?
Is it at all possible to write sensibly but critically about the way in which the concept of “transformation” has evolved in kleptocratic South Africa? “Transformation” has become a buzzword that is much bandied about and much abused, but few people explain what they mean when they use the word. Like mother hood and apple [...]
Boiled chickens pretending to be plumed peacocks
Suddenly there is a lot of (artificially whipped-up) hysteria about the media doing the rounds amongst certain politicians. They want to muzzle the media by introducing a Media Tribunal “with teeth” and are also hell bent on passing the Protection of Information Bill which will criminalize much of what goes for investigative journalism in this [...]
Somewhere in the wild, wild, East
In 1963, the apartheid Parliament rushed through the General Laws Amendment Act, Number 37 of 1963. The Act applied retroactively to June 27th 1962 and was mainly aimed at ensuring that the ANC leaders arrested at Lilliesleaf Farm in Rivonia could be held in detention indefinitely or until they could be charged.
Under this General Law [...]
More questions for Mbeki on Selebi
When former US President Bill Clinton was confronted with allegations that he had sex in the Oval Office with the White House intern, Monica Lewinski, he went on national television and with his lower lip quivering (he can do that quivering-with-indignation-and-selfrighteousness look better than most politicians), he declared: “I did not have sexual relations with [...]
Isn’t it all a bit too easy?
Isn’t it all just a bit too easy? Last week the four former Free State University students known as the Reitz Four were found guilty on a charge of crimen injuria by the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court for making a video in which they humiliated 5 workers who were probably old enough to be their mothers. [...]
Who could have made up this stuff?
What on earth is going on at the Brett Kebble murder trial? So far two state witnesses have testified that they were involved in the killing of former mining magnate and ANC Youth League benefactor, Brett Kebble. They claim it was an “assisted suicide” and that they were so bad at the job that they [...]
