Constitutional Hill

media

Why a free flow of information is important

Jan 31st, 2011
by Pierre De Vos.
63 comments

Throughout the 20th century, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) had held complete power at the state and federal level in Mexico. For 60 years the PRI won regular elections of various degrees of freeness and fairness. Because Mexico was a one party dominant democracy, the dominance of the PRI created its own momentum and it became almost unthinkable for the majority of voters not to support the PRI.

To get ahead in the civil service, to win government tenders, to be appointed as a school principle or police chief, one had to be seen to be a supporter of the PRI. And because of the overwhelming electoral support enjoyed by the PRI it was easy for it to discredit and even de-legitimise opposition parties. Only the PRI spoke for the masses of the people and only the PRI could be trusted to govern the country and to bring revolutionary development and change to the people (along with enormous prosperity and wealth for PRI leaders and those who knew them). 

And because of its dominance and its control of much of the media, it managed to win elections despite increasing allegations of corruption and nepotism levelled against it. There just was no one else to vote for and no one to trust. But this could never last: In the end Mexicans began to  distrust everyone – including the leaders of the PRI. While  some still believed that it would be in their interest to continue voting for the PRI and returned the PRI to power after every election, many people did not vote at all.

Thus the support of the PRI slowly began to recede in the late 1980s, but especially since the 1990s with the emergence of new forms of technology like cell phones and the Internet, with the growth of a more confident and informed middle class who eventually voted into office a former Coca Cola Executive as President. (That is like South Africa voting into office a former CEO of Anglo-American or the Rembrandt Group.) In 1989, the first non-PRI governor of a state was elected (at Baja California). It was in 1997, that PRI lost its absolute majority at the Congress of the Union, and in 2000 the first non-PRI president was elected since 1929.

Mexico shed its one party dominant character and today politics are robust and open. Although Mexico has many problems – drug lords seem to be able to terrorise citizens in many part of the country and effectively control the government in some parts – it did not go through the kind of violent convulsion we have seen in the last three weeks in Tunisia and now in Egypt. This is because Tunisia and Egypt have been authoritarian police states propped up by the USA government, who has poured more than $1.5 billion in military aid into Egypt each year since Egypt signed a peace deal with Israel.

Egypt holds regular elections but it would be a stretch to call it a democracy as there are severe restrictions on freedom of speech, the government has ruled under emergency powers for more than 30 years and there are severe restrictions on political organisation and mobilisation. Egypt is therefore more like Zimbabwe than South Africa. It is ruled nominally by the National Democratic Party (NDP), but this party is little more than an extension of the will of the President.

Watching the NDP headquarters in Cairo go up in flames on Al Jazeera on Friday night, my first thought was whether, thirty years from now, we will be watching Al Jazeera and seeing Luthuli House go up in flames during a revolt by unemployed and relatively educated youth which would shake the hold of the ANC government on the country to the core.

No political party can govern for ever. Even a liberation movement like the ANC will someday stop governing South Africa. This will probably happen either because the ANC was successful enough to create a big enough middle class whose interests does not coincide with the traditional working class constituency of the ANC and the one or the other class would desert the party (as happened in Mexico), or it would happen because the ANC would have lost all credibility and legitimacy because of increasing repression, linked to enormous corruption and nepotism and rising unemployment.

In the first instance the change might well come peacefully. The last ANC leader in power will lose an election and will retire peacefully (maybe opening an institute focusing on democracy building or anti-corruption efforts). This is what happens in a relatively free and open society: at some point the political party in power loses support and another party with different ideas win the election. Once that happens, South Africa would have become what political scientists call a mature democracy.

But if the ANC becomes more repressive - if it passes the draconian Protection of Information Bill, then a Bill creating a politician appointed Media Appeals Tribunal, then start taking measures further to limit political freedom and the ability of both parliamentary opposition groups and social movements to organise and to present a vehicle for those disaffected with its increasing corrupt and autocratic style, if it amends the Constitution and packs the courts with unprincipled lackeys – the last ANC leader in power might well have to seek political asylum in Zimbabwe or perhaps in the USA if he or she wants to escape the wrath of the people.

If the SABC becomes an ever more vocal mouthpiece spouting ANC propaganda, if we also start saying as they do in Egypt, that one cannot believe any rumour until it has been officially denied on state TV, if media laws restrict or completely repress the free media and monitor the Internet and anyone critical of the regime is fearful of talking on his or her phone because that phone will most certainly be tapped by the intelligence services, then a peaceful change becomes ever less likely. It is then that we will see the burning of Luthuli House and the storming of the SABC’s Auckland Park offices, when hundreds of thousands of people will march through the streets of Johannesburg and Cape Town and the army will scramble to see if any of their tanks are actually working so that they could be ordered into the streets to try and quell the demonstrations.

This is the lesson I take from what is happening in North Africa: in the end in the modern world with Internet and sattelite TV and mobile phones and rising levels of education amongst the population, political opression and control of the media can never ensure that a political party remains in power for ever. All it would do is heighten the chances of a violent uprising that will destroy the incumbent political party who tried to stay in power by repression. As Parliament deals with the Protection of Information Bill which – in its present form – would allow more than 1000 organs of state, including Zoos, universities, and Arts councils,  to classify documents deemed a threat to state security – I hope that they remember that often a restriction on information in the long term is more dangerous for those in power than openness and transparency could ever be.

Charm or intimidate?

Jan 10th, 2011
by Pierre De Vos.
41 comments

For some reason today I thought about a former Director General of the SABC, a guy called Riaan “Koedoe” Eksteen. He  used to be friends with then State President PW Botha before they had a falling out. The big clash came when the Reverend Alan Hendrickse resigned from PW Botha’s cabinet after he went for a swim on a “whites only” beach in protest at the remaining “petty apartheid” still enforced by the then National Party government.

Hendrickse was the leader of the Labour Party who was the majority party in the “House of Representatives”, the so called “coloured” House in the laughable tri-cameral Parliament, and as a gimmick PW Botha had included Hendrickse in his cabinet to try and show that his “reforms” were not cosmetic.

But after Hendrickse went for the swim, PW Botha (not a man with an even temper) lost his cool. He was even more incensed when he watched the eight’o clock news that evening (in those days the SABC’s main news bulletin was at eight in the evenings) and saw that Hendrickse had resigned. In fact, Botha claimed that he had fired Hendrickse before he could resign.

Botha then phoned Koedoe Eksteen and ordered that Botha’s letter in which he fired Hendrickse be read out no less than three times during the half hour news programme. Poor Freek Robinson, who was reading the news that night, was then told to do as Botha had ordered. Robinson first refused but he was told it was a management decision and he then proceeded to read that letter three times.

Six months later Robinson was “moved” to London, something many SABC watchers at the time interpreted as punishment for his initial reluctance to follow the orders of the President. Botha claimed at the time that he had not ordered the letter to be read but merely requested that it be read — three times, of course!

Now we live in a constitutional democracy and the SABC is supposed to be a public broadcaster that serves the entire community — not only the governing party. Although the SABC is more of a state than a public broadcaster and has a pro-ANC slant, as far as we know the blatant interference in the editorial content of news programmes are a thing of the past. Whether the head of the SABC Board or the Chief Executive Officer still receive phone calls from politicians to instruct them what to air and what to censor is unclear, but if it still happens, the new guys clearly are not nearly as brazen as PW Botha who ensured that the SABC was nothing else but a plain propaganda arm of the National Party.

Compared to the SABC in those years, the broadcaster is now a paragon of objective and responsible journalism.

But what about our print media? Do journalists and editors at our newspapers also get angry phone calls from politicians and if they do, is this appropriate?  I have been reliably told by one political journalist that he used to be woken up at the crack of dawn by angry phone calls from a certain opposition politician who angrily denounced his reporting and demanded some form of correction — until the journalist complained to other members of the party about her actions and pointed out that this kind of intimidation was unacceptable.

Would it be acceptable if the President or some other important ANC leader phoned up the editor of the Sunday Times to complain about a news report, to issue threats or to demand retractions or a change in the tenor of the reporting of the newspaper? If so, when? If not, what other course of action is available to political parties if they are aggrieved with the reporting of a newspaper? And what about phone calls to the owners of the Sunday Times?

Would it make a difference if the politician was from an opposition party and not the governing party?

Maybe because I lived through the Koedoe Eksteen era and because I have always been a passionate supporter of freedom of expression, I lean towards the view that it is not appropriate for political leaders to phone up editors or journalist to complain about the tenor of that newspaper’s reporting as this can very easily be seen as an attempt to intimidate the free press.

Politicians can, of course, ask for a right to reply in the opinion pages of the newspaper or they can write a letter to the newspaper putting across their view. And if they feel that the newspaper has breached the Press Code they can lodge a complaint with the press ombudsman. If a mistake was made (as was the case in the story published in the Sunday Times about the alleged sale of the ocean next to the Waterfront) the editor will surely publish a correction.

But facts are slippery things and need to be interpreted. Usually the way independent journalist interpret the facts differ from the way politicians interpret those same facts. Usually reasonable people (of which some may even be politicians) could disagree about the interpretation of the facts and then there should be no room for a politician to try and change the newspaper’s interpretation merely because the story is unflattering to the politician or the party he or she belongs to.

But maybe I am being unrealistic? Maybe newspaper editors field calls from angry politicians each day and what is required is for the editors to have a strong backbone and to resist any attempts at intimidation by politicians (and to protect their journalists from this kind of intimidation, of course).

If I were a politician I am sure I would often have disagreed with the way the newspapers reported on matters affecting myself or the political party I belonged to. But I suspect I would have tried a different approach than the one set out above by cultivating journalists and trying to charm them. Often the difference between obtaining an “A” or a “D” on the Mail & Guardian’s cabinet report card hinges on whether the cabinet Minister is a media savvy person who tries to charm and impress journalists or whether the Minister acts as if journalists are his or her enemies that have to be fought tooth and nail.

Let’s face it, even today, after so many years some of us shake our heads and remember that PW Botha was a reactionary bigot and an unconscionable bully, while Pik Botha – who served in the same cabinet for many years – is rather more fondly remembered (or at least not remembered as a monster).

It would be interesting to hear what readers of this Blog think about these questions.

On the The New Age

Dec 6th, 2010
by Pierre De Vos.
36 comments

During my student days I worked at Die Matie, the Stellenbosch University student newspaper. We had lots of fun finding new ways of upsetting the powers that be (believing we were revolutionaries when we were really only left-of-centre students having fun with questioning authority). From publishing an article about students having sex in the Ox Wagon stationed in Die Neelsie (the student canteen), to publishing interviews with Trevor Manuel (shortly after his release from a longs pell in detention) and Archbishop Tutu, we managed to get the authorities of this apartheid university quite worked up.

Once, after writing a column in which I compared PW Botha (who was the Chancellor of the University) to a clown and in which I included a fake phone conversation between PW Botha and the head of the SABC, which ended with PW Botha slamming down the phone and his wife saying: “Pappie, bedaar tog. Jy weet wat die dokter oor jou hart gese het” (“Daddy, calm, down. You know what the doctor said about your heart”) I was called in by the Vice Chancellor who threatened to expel me from the University.

That never happened, of course. In the apartheid years, good Afrikaner boys were not expelled from conservative Afrikaans universities – no matter how much they had angered the State President or had upset the thin-skinned apartheid apparachniks running the university.

The paper was still made up by hand at the offices of Die Burger in Cape Town. On Wednesday evenings as we put Die Matie to bed, the subeditors of Die Burger would come down from their offices on the 5th floor to where both papers were being  finalised to have a final look at the pages of their paper. In those days Die Burger was still the official mouthpiece of the National Party and the editors were anxious about how their pages would be viewed by President PW Botha and other Nat leaders.

More than once I heard them remark about how happy PW Botha would be with their particular page — either because it contained many stories from PW Botha’s home town of George or because it contained stories which put the PFP or the ANC in a bad light.

If one read both Die Burger and the then Weekly Mail one would have thought that they were reporting on two completely different countries. The former was filled with stories about the Total Onslaught, that “communist and terrorist”, Nelson Mandela, and endless reports of cabinet ministers opening agricultural shows and railing against the liberal media and the evil opposition in Parliament, led by an Afrikaner traitor, Frederik van Zyl Slabbert. The latter reported on UDF politics and on police atrocities — although such reports were scarred by black strips before it was made illegal for a newspaper to cover certain sentences in their reports with black strips when these sentences contravened the totalitarian state of emergency media regulations.

We have come a long way since those years. Freedom of expression — including freedom of the media — is now entrenched in our Constitution and the mainstream media is now far more vibrant and critical of business leaders and politicians than it was then. Because of the changing political and legal landscape, newspapers are far more capable and willing to report on government corruption. The defamation laws have been relaxed to make it more difficult for politicians successfully to sue a newspaper (which is why President Jacob Zuma’s various defamation actions are never ever going to reach a court of law).

Anyone with access to the Internet can now obtain information from a wide variety of sources, including foreign newspaper websites, sites like Wikileaks and from many local and international Blogs. If the National Party had still been in power today it would not have been nearly as successful as it was then in controlling the flow of news. In a globalised and connected world, those with access to the Internet who wish to know more about the world around them, will find a way.

It is in this context that The New Age newspaper finally launched today. The venture has been widely ridiculed, not only because the financial backers of the paper are tenderpreneurial friends of President Jacob Zuma, but also because the paper has stated that it will broadly support the ANC government. Why anyone would have a problem with The New Age stating upfront that it would be broadly supportive of the ANC government,  is beyond me.

Unlike the SABC, which is supposed to be a public broadcaster serving the needs of all South Africans and, hence, is supposed to be scrupulously fair and non-partisan (something it is decidedly not), The New Age is privately owned. If it wants to take a pro-ANC line, so be it. If there are enough newspaper readers who would want to buy such a paper, it would probably be good for the media landscape in South Africa if The New Age survives and even thrives as it will provide another voice to take part in the national conversation.

In my experience South African print journalists have a tendency to hunt in packs. Because they often hang out together and often have more or less the same ideological commitments or political instincts (which — rightly in my view — seems deeply cynical of the political class), they have a tendency to agree on what the take on a particular story should be and often pursue more or less the same angle to a story, whether they work for The Times, The Citizen, The Star or The Sowetan.

This is not part of some liberal conspiracy — its just the way human beings work. The addition of another voice — one that is slightly more professional and credible than the SABC, which is a news outlet that does not always seem too hard to try to be fair — that might provide a different perspective, will hopefully make all journalists more aware of their own unspoken assumptions and commitments and will help them to sharpen their analysis and reporting. Competition is often a good thing — also when it comes to reporting.

There is no such thing as a neutral news source. Journalists can try and be fair and they can steer clear of obvious party-political propaganda, but in the end what they report on and how they report on it will not be absolutely “objective”. (There is a difference between being fair and being objective. The former is worth striving for, the latter is impossible.)

Every day millions of potentially important things (important at least for some people) happen in the world and it would be impossible for one newspaper to report on it all. This means some things are left out and decisions about what is left out and what is published are based on many factors, including the underlying assumptions of newspaper editors about how the world works and who reads their newspapers.

That is why South Africa’s serious newspapers mostly have a bias towards Gauteng and Cape Town, why they report on what Ministers say and what happens in Parliament relatively well, but seldom tell the stories of Mrs Ledwaba in Sheshego or Mr Biyela in Lusikisiki. What is published in a newspaper and what not, how it is reported and what angle is taken, all depend on the underlying assumptions of those writing, editing and publishing the newspaper. This does not make the newspapers evil or  part of an anti-democratic plot as Blade Nzimande suggested rather laughably last month: like history, the news presented by one news outlet will always be just one of many possible versions about our country and our world.

The New Age will be no different. It will provide one version of what happens in our country. That will not necessarily make it a bad newspaper. As long as it does not turn into a propaganda mouthpiece of the ANC (a bit like Die Burger used to be for the National Party and like the SABC used to be for the National Party and now more often seems to be for the ANC), it will add a valuable voice to the media landscape in South Africa.

If The New Age can fill some of the gaps left by other publications and if it can report on parts of our world which other newspapers do not often cover very well, it would be good for all of us as it will help us to understand our country better and perhaps even help us to understand the ANC better.

Of course, the paper might turn out to be boring and uninspiring, in which case the Gupta’s will waste millions of Rand on a hopeless venture before the paper closes down. And there is a danger that the paper might gain advertising revenue  from the state not on the strength of its readership, but because of its pro-ANC stance. If that happens the paper will be associated with corruption and this will not be good for its reputation. It will also constitute an abuse of power on the part of ANC-aligned state institutions and might well be illegal.

So, I welcome the publication of The New Age. I hope it will not be boring and that it will not become a propaganda sheet without any credibility, but that it will provide a different take on the news and different political analysis from what is currently available in the mainstream media. If it does, I will become a regular reader — even if I will not always agree with the way it reports on everything or with all the political stances it takes or political opinions it carries.

This is one of the wonders of a free media: one has a choice to listen to different voices and then to make up your own mind about what is right and wrong.

The New Age needs you….

Oct 20th, 2010
by Pierre De Vos.
97 comments

It is a pity that The New Age, the planned newspaper which has positioned itself as “broadly supportive of the government”, did not appear today as planned because of the resignation of 5 senior editors (including the editor-in-chief and the deputy editor) yesterday, just a few hours before the first edition had to go to print. South Africa needs a more diverse print media and judging from its website, the new product would have provided a lively but credible new voice to the media landscape.

I was rather startled though when I went to The New Age website and a window popped up with the following advertisement.

That was quick.


TNA MEDIA

WWYHD: “What would you have done?”

Sep 13th, 2010
by Pierre De Vos.
79 comments

One of the wonders of living in a democracy is that one soon finds out that there are quite a few idiots about (not all of them politicians) and that it is ok for people to behave like idiots as long as they do not cause too much harm to others. Usually the world as we know it does not come to an end just because some fool somewhere has decided to do something really daft to attract attention or to demonstrate that he (it is always a he is it not?) can be hateful and bigoted in a very special way.

One is free to phone radio talk shows to make cringe worthy statements demonstrating one’s ignorance and superstition or  to say racist, sexist and homophobic things - even if your name is not Julius Malema. One can dress up in horns and a tight blue jersey and paint one’s face blue to show loyalty to that hopeless rugby team called the Blue Bulls. One can appoint an all male cabinet and think no one will notice and one can even – and now I am pushing it – believe that the legal advice provided to the Minister of Defence by her fugitive-from-justice advisor is legally sound.

But when should the courts intervene to stop individuals from making fools of themselves? On what basis should a judge decide that the actions of an individual will cause such harm to others that he or she should be stopped and should be interdicted from going through with his or her planned actions? Should a judge prevent someone from communicating his or her displeasure about a topical issue merely because this would be hurtful to a certain section of the population?

These questions came to mind when I read in the media that Judge Sita Kolbe in the South Gauteng High Court issued an interdict on Friday against a planned Bible burning by businessman and law student Mohammed Vawda.  Vawda said his plan had nothing to do with Christianity; instead, he said he planned the burning because he was angry about Florida pastor Terry Jones’s plan to burn Korans over the weekend.

One could argue that this judgment is not surprising, given the provision of section 16(2)(c) in the Constitution as well as the content of section 10 of the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act (PEPUDA). Section 16(2)(c) of the Constitution states that freedom of expression does not extend to advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion and that constitutes incitement to cause harm.

This means that the burning of Bibles (or the Koran) would not constitute constitutionally protected speech if it advocated hatred and constituted incitement to cause harm. The Constitutional Court has not yet given a conclusive answer to what this might mean. Canadian case law suggests that the harm should be defined more broadly than physical harm. Acts or words that advocate hatred against a group based on their religion and that constitute incitement to cause serious emotional distress would also qualify as hate speech and would not be constitutionally protected.

Would the burning of Bibles or the Koran constitute incitement to cause serious emotional distress?  Well, it probably would cause serious emotional distress to devout Christians or Muslims if Bibles or Korans are burnt, but I am not so sure that one would be able to argue that the burning of these books would in itself constitute advocacy of hatred of people based on their religious beliefs. Such actions would be mean-spirited and would clearly be intended to hurt the seriously religious. But would one be able to interpret such a pathetic act as advocating hatred against Muslims or Christians? Would it not “merely” be a spiteful attempt to upset Christians (or Muslims)?

If one thought that it could be interpreted as advocating hatred, then one would be entitled to believe that the interdict would have been granted validly. If one thought that it could not, then one might have to conclude that the judge was wrong to grant the interdict.

But even then, this would not be the end of the matter as section 10 of PEPUDA prohibits any person from publishing, advocating or communicating words that could reasonably be construed to demonstrate a clear intention to be hurtful, to be harmful or to incite harm against individuals or groups, inter alia, because of their religion.

Here the definition is far broader than the hate speech provision in the Constitution – except that it seems only to include words and not other kinds of communication such as the burning of Bibles or Korans. One would have to interpret the phrase “advocating or communicating words” so broadly as to include actions - such as the burning of Bibles – where no words are spoken at all but where some communication takes place that signals an intention to hurt others on the basis of their religion.

I am not so sure that the phrase could reasonable be interpreted in such a broad manner. If it could be interpreted so broadly, then it would be clear that the burning of Bibles (or Korans) – a rather spiteful and childish act intended to upset others – would constitute hate speech in terms of PEPUDA and the court would have been correct to grant the interdict. If, however, one interprets words more narrowly to include only words (what a lawyerly phrase that is!) then section 10 would not apply to the burning of Bibles (or Korans) and the granting of the interdict might have been a mistake.

Unless, perhaps, the burning of the Bibles (or the Korans) would have incited people to commit violence. Could a court justifiably have granted an interdict because it was worried that the burning of Bibles or copies of the Koran would have been so provocative that it would have created a serious threat of violence by those offended by the burning of what they consider to be a holy book?

Would this have been a responsible and correct approach or would it have been rather problematic because it would have endorsed the religious intolerance of those who are so easily offended that they would resort to violence every time somebody does something nasty or hurtful relating to their religion? Should religious people not lighten up a bit and chill out and if they do not, should the court take this into account when muzzling free expression?

If we talk about a respect for difference and tolerance of religious diversity, does this not mean that religious believers must also show a tolerance and a respect for diversity towards those who wish to provoke them. I for one, will not rush out to buy a gun or gather my matches and necklaces to go out and kill Christians just because they rock up at my house to protest and to tell me that I am a pervert and that I will burn in hell.

In fact, I will blow them kisses and wave nicely – “one-two-three clutch pearls” – before smiling and getting ready for another wave – “one-two-three clutch pearls”(one can always learn something about how to behave in stressful situations by studying the Queen – of England).

But what is to be done when others are not as tolerant as oneself? Should a court take cognisance of that fact or should the court stand firm against all kinds of intolerance? For once I am not sure what I would have done in this case.  Should a judge prohibit the burning of Korans and Bibles because of the obvious intention behind such a move merely to hurt (rather than to communicate a political or religious message)? Or should a judge allow such a burning on the basis that religious believers should grow up and should learn to embrace the values of democratic tolerance?

WWYHD? (What would you have done?)

In defense of the Internet

Sep 9th, 2010
by Pierre De Vos.
104 comments

Which readers of this Blog (whom I assume are mostly relatively well informed) know the names of Mr Sbu Zikode, Mr Mzwakhe Mdlalose,  Ms Bandile Mdlalose, Ms Zandile Nsibande or Mr Zodwa Nsibande? They are, of course the President, Vice President, Secretary General, Chairperson of the Women’s League and Chairperson of the Youth League of Abahlali baseMjondolo, the Durban Shack Dwellers Movement, one of the most influential and vibrant social movements in South Africa who, on its website, describes itself as the largest organization of the militant poor in South Africa.

These are not household names because the leaders of Abahlali baseMjondolo hardly ever appear on SABC TV or radio or ETV and are seldom quoted in the daily serious newspapers (media consumed by the elites of all races). Abahlali is hardly ever quoted exactly because they style themselves as an organization that represents the militant poor in opposition to elites of all races – including the elites who sit in our government and drive in R1 million cars in blue light convoys. These are the very elites who control the SABC, ETV and the printed media and produce news for other elites (like those who write and read this Blog).

Last year when Abahlali leaders and ordinary members were viscously attacked by thugs, allegedly in collusion with members of the police, some newspapers did report on the matter and when it successfully challenged the constitutionality of the apartheid-style Kwa-Zulu/Natal Slums Act it was also reported – scantily – in the media.

But as a general rule, both the ANC-aligned SABC and private independent media have not done a good job of reporting on the actions of this group. What motivates its members? What are the conditions that have produced this organisation representing the interests of the militant poor? What is it that motivates its members and what does the organisation wish to achieve? What does it mean for our democracy? One would be hard pressed to find any reporting or analysis on such pressing questions in our media.

I therefore agree with Steven Friedman that there is something seriously wrong with the way in which our media operates (although I suspect that the problem is even more complex than he suggests). Writing in Business Day, yesterday Friedman pointed out that:

Government attacks on the press have ensured that it is hard to question journalists’ priorities for fear of being seen to encourage censorship. But it should be possible both to defend the press’s right to tell us everything we need to know and to complain that, in the main, it does not tell us — to oppose not only the controls politicians place on papers but those journalists place on themselves….

The problem here is a pack journalism in which some decide what the story is and everyone follows — and reportage which is obsessed with the actions of a few political figures rather than the patterns which may shape where our country is headed; its practitioners are judged by how connected they are to politicians, not by whether they identify trends.

Our media – both the SABC and the independent media – has an inherent bias in favour of process stories focusing on the official political horse races: What happens in Parliament? Which leaders of the alliance are fighting with each other? Does President Jacob Zuma have any chance of being elected to a second term? Is the Alliance a dead horse or will it survive until Jesus comes back? Is Julius Malema’s fortunes rising or falling?

Our media also has ideological and class biases, reflecting the anxieties and the concerns of members of the middle and upper classes and political elites. The way in which the scandalous behaviour by some striking workers were reported recently (by both the SABC and the private media) served certain ideological and class interests. It focused very strongly (but admittedly not exclusively) on these excesses, and this served the ideological and class interests of the rulers. (No ANC leader complained about the way in which the media vilified the strikers, for example.)

Reporting is about making choices: about what to report and what to leave out, about what to highlight and what to underplay, about how to interpret what is being reported and how to structure the narrative of our daily lives in a way that would make often chaotic events understandable to the consumers of news. We have a tendency to want to fit events into a bigger story, a master narrative if you will, and when the media constructs such a narrative they do so to serve certain class and ideological interests.

The South African media is of course not unique in this regard. Noam Chomsky writes in Manufacturing Consent that it is the primary function of the mass media in the United States to mobilise public support for the special interests that dominate the government and the private sector in that country. The same argument could be applied locally.

This does not mean that the ANC proposal for a Media Appeals Tribunal would be a good thing either. Such a tribunal would merely attempt further to narrow the class and ideological focus of the media to prevent reporting that would be damaging to the governing party and those individuals who circle like hyenas around the party bosses in search of influence and money. If the Tribunal is to have any teeth, it would probably be unconstitutional in any case.

What is then to be done?

My answer would be that one has to accept that in a capitalist society with a free media, that media will always be biased in favour of the elites in and outside of government and will advance their interests. Luckily we live in the age of the Internet and with a little effort one can obtain news and analysis with a slightly broader perspective from the “interweb” (as Die Antwoord might say).

When the ANC discussion document talks about a diversification of the media, it does not take cognisance of this fact. If the ANC was really interested in creating a vibrant and ideologically diverse media, it would not pin its hopes on the Gupta-financed newspaper called New Age. Instead, it would focus on the ways in which citizen journalists and members of social movements can use the internet to disseminate news about its activities and ideas which are not often reflected in the mainstream media.

What is needed is a radical programme to make the internet cheaper and more accessible to ordinary people and to provide support for the kind of citizen journalism and analysis that would provide a far broader spectrum of news and ideas than is currently available in the mainstream media? But I guess this is not what the ANC has in mind, as the Internet is an unruly beast that cannot easily be controlled. The last thing the ANC wants is to give the militant poor (to use just one example) a platform that could be used to organise against the party and the government of the day.

But the internet is here to stay and even if the ANC manages to impose a Media Appeals Tribunal to censor the mainstream media, it will soon find out that this will not stop the bad news from coming out. Neither will it stifle dissent from those whom the governing party truly fears: the unemployed and militant poor.

Why Steven Friedman is wrong

Aug 26th, 2010
by Pierre De Vos.
61 comments

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 activism, Friedman wrongly interprets the punitive provisions of the Bill and completely underestimates the possible chilling effect of the Bill on the work of journalists.

Friedman points to section 17 of the Bill to justify his argument. However, perhaps because he is not a journalist or a lawyer, he completely misreads the Bill and naively but dangerously underestimates its potential effect on the media – and perhaps on ordinary citizens. Referring to section 17 of the Bill he writes:

It stipulates that information may not be classified if the purpose is to conceal illegal acts, or “incompetence, inefficiency or administrative error” by the government. Nor can it be used to “restrict access to information in order to limit scrutiny and thereby avoid criticism” or to “prevent embarrassment to a person, organisation, organ of state or agency” or to “unlawfully restrain or lessen competition”. These qualifications will not get officials to respect the rights of citizens, particularly the poor. But they should ensure that journalists, particularly those in the commercial media, will be protected…

The protections in the bill may be ignored by officials who classify information, but they will shape the findings of the courts. And so, those with the means to challenge, in court, classifications designed to prevent media reporting on misdeeds or disadvantage private businesses will ensure that the law does nothing to them, while those who lack those means will be prevented from knowing what the government is doing. And since hiring lawyers requires money, the bill would disadvantage the poor rather than the affluent — and is more likely to make grassroots activism harder than it is to make journalism difficult.

Section 17 of the Bill states that classification decisions must be guided by the considerations stated by Friedman (along with the Orwelian consideration that “secrecy exists to protect the national interest”). This means that if a document is wrongly classified and this is challenged in court, a court can rule that the relevant official had wrongly classified the document because he or she was motivated by one of the factors mentioned by Friedman. A court will be able to do so if it found that the classification was motivated by one of the factors mentioned by Friedman and was not motivated by the need to protect the “national interest” – Also taking into account the other factors mentioned in section 17 of the Bill.

But the Bill does not merely impose criminal sanctions on those who had distributed, received or published the content of documents that have been correctly classified. Section 18, read with section 39 and 39, makes it a criminal offence for any person to possess or distribute any classified document or to publish its content – even if these were incorrectly classified.

These sections do not provide for a defence that the documents were wrongly classified. Some of the other criminal provisions prohibit only the “unlawful” possession or distribution of classified documents knowing that it could harm the state’s interest. These sections could arguably be read to include a defence that the documents were wrongly classified and that the possession, distribution or publication was therefore not “unlawful” as required by the Bill.

But the criminal offences created by sections 18, 38 and 39 prohibits any person from being in possession of a “classified record” and from disclosing the information in that record and provide for a minimum three year sentence for those who contravene this prohibition. As I read it, even the best lawyers in the world will not assist a journalist caught in possession of a classified document – even if it was classified wrongly for the reasons mentioned in section 17.

But even if I am wrong, it would almost always be impossible to prove that documents were classified for one of the invalid reasons stated in section 17 and not for one of the valid reasons stated in section 11. Because section 11 of the Bill states that any document can be classified to protect the “national interest”, which includes “all matters relating to the advancement of the public good”, the pursuit of justice, democracy, economic growth, free trade, a stable monetary system and sound international relations”, there will almost always be a valid purpose for classifying documents – alongside the ulterior purpose set out in section 17.

For example, if a document reveals massive corruption in the arms deal and is classified by an official, it could be that this was done to avoid criticism or cover up corruption. But it could just as well have been done in the “national interest” because it would have been necessary to advance  the “public good”. Surely to reveal this information would be potentially damaging to the economic growth of the country, could destabilise the monetary system, and could affect free trade with those countries from whom we had bought expensive arms.

If one is charged in terms of the provisions of this proposed Bill, one will have to show that the official classified the documents not for the valid purpose set out in section 11 but for the invalid purpose set out in section 17.  To prove this will almost always be impossible to do. How does one prove that official X had an invalid motive for classifying a document when that official maintains that he or she classified the document for the valid purpose mentioned in section 11? 

Unless a very brave official comes froward to testify that a fellow official had told him or her that the document was classified for an ulterior purpose, one will have to assume that the document was classified for one of the reasons mentioned in section 11. Section 17 is therefore little more than a paper guarantee that will have little effect.

But even if I was wrong about this too, one will have to ask which journalist would be brave enough (or stupid enough) to risk his or her freedom on the off-chance that he or she would be able to convince a court that the documents were not classified for the valid purpose in section 11 but for the invalid purpose set out in section 17? If the journalist failed to convince the court that the document was wrongly classified (which would be rather difficult to do given the extraordinarily broad  discretion given by section 11 to classify documents), that journalists would have to spend three years in jail. (One assumes even a sudden case of life threatening high blood pressure would not allow the journalists to return to the golf course.)

The Bill, if passed, will therefore no doubt have a chilling effect on the media and will limit the ability of the media to report on ineficiency, corruption and maladministration.

This is therefore one of those cases where the interests of journalists and the media on the one hand and the interests of grassroots activists (indeed, all 45 million South Africans who are not politicians or government officials) on the other, dovetail completely. Ordinarily, grassroots activists do not run around with classified documents which then help them to hold the politicians to account for the service delivery failures or for corruption. Such activists will therefore seldom be the target of the Bill and will seldom face criminal sanction in terms of this Bill. They will therefore have less to fear from the criminal sanctions of the Bill than journalists.

This does not mean that the Bill is not an utter disaster for active citizenship and for the work done by grassroots activists. The problem is not that grassroots activists will be jailed because they have no access to good lawyers when they are caught in posession of classified documents. Rather the problem is that grassroots activists will not get access to the information they need in the first place because the media won’t publish it.

Such activists mostly rely on the media for information which they can then use to take action and to hold the officials or politicians to account. If the media is intimidated by the Bill and stops investigating matters because of a fear of imprisonment, grassroots activists will have very little chance of getting access to the information needed. Both journalists and ordinary citizens therefore have a lot to worry about if this Bill ever becomes law.

That is why I believe it represents a fundamental attack on our democracy.

Why now?

Aug 19th, 2010
by Pierre De Vos.
105 comments

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 and the proposed Public Broadcasting Service Bill all aim to tighten the control of the government over the free flow of information.

We are far from the dark days of apartheid (see picture below) when the Nationalist government muzzled the press to try and retain its illegitimate power. We live in a constitutional democracy now and our courts will probably play a pivotal role in preventing the muzzling of the media (or will at least limit the effectiveness of such attempts). They will do so, because most judges understand that the free flow of information is, of course, the lifeblood of any democracy.

The question is: why now? Why is the government of the day orchestrating this concerted effort to change the way in which our media report on government activities? It is tempting to find an answer by turning to the personalities involved and arguing that President Zuma and other ANC leaders are upset about how the media has reported on their own activities and actions. But another reason for this attack on the media suggests itself and can be found in the utterances and documents of the ruling party itself.

Picture 080

Perhaps the move against the free media is based on a realistic acknowledgement on the part of the ANC that it is facing a crisis of legitimacy. It seems incapable of addressing this crisis, so some of its leaders might believe that the only way to deal with the problem is to stop the reporting on events that has precipitated this crisis.

I offer a few quotes below to illustrate this point. President Jacob Zuma at a March 2008 National Executive Committee (NEC) Meeting:

When elected leaders at the highest level openly engage in factionalist activity, where is the movement that aims to unite the people of South Africa for the complete liberation of the country from all forms of discrimination and national oppression? When money changes hands in the battle for personal power and aggrandizement, where is the movement that is built around membership that joins without motives of material advantage and personal gain? When the members of the NEC themselves engage in factionalist activity, media leaks and rumour-mongering, how can we ex pect the membership of our movement to carry out their duties toobserve di scipline, behave honestly and carry out loyally the decisions of the majority and the decision of higher bodies?

From the admirably frank document on “Leadership Renewal, discipline and organizational culture” prepared for the ANC National General Council later this year, which highlights the following tenancies in the ANC:

12.1 Leadership in the ANC is seen as stepping-stones to positions of power and material reward in government and business (Organisational report to the 1997 Mafikeng Confe rence).

12.2 The emergence of social distance between ANC cadres in positions of power from the motive forces which the ANC represent, with the potential to render elements in the movement “progressively lethargic to the conditions of the poor.” (Strategy and Tactics, 1997)

12.3 Disturbing trends of “careerism, corruption and opportunism,” alien to a revolutionary movement, taking roots at various levels, eating at our soul and with potential to denude our society of an agent of real change. (Midterm Review, NGC, 2000)

12.4 Divisive leadership battles over access to resources and patronage becoming the norm and allegations about corruption and business interests of leadership and deployed cadres abounding (Organisational report to the Stellenbosch Conference, 2002).

49. Failure to build a New Person (continued the 2000 NGC document), among revolutionaries themselves and, in a more diffuse manner in broader society, will result in a critical mass of the vanguard movement being swallowed in the vortex of the arrogance of power and attendant social distance and corruption, and, ultimately, themselves being transformed by the very system they seek to change. An important challenge, among others, is thus to ensure a systematic intervention by the ideological centres and institutions of society, as well as mothers and fathers and the family as a whole in shaping social values and a new morality.

53. Strategy and Tactics (2007: par. 138) recognizes the challenges and ‘sins’ of incumbency (patronage, bureaucratic indifference, arrogance of power, corruption) and suggests approaches to the management of relations within the organization. Our ability to manage this minefield, it contends, will determine “our future survival as a principled leader of the process of fundamental change, an organization respected and cherished by the mass of people for what it represents and how it conducts itself in actual practice.”

From the various ANC discussion documents it is clear that the problem of legitimacy facing the ANC has long been acknowledged by the movement. As far back as the Stellenbosch conference in 2002 these “tendencies” were identified. But now, eight years later, the problem has become more acute and the movement has been unable to address them in any meaningful way. It is one thing to admit the problem. It is a completely different matter to deal with it effectively.

A culture of forgiveness (or some would call it impunity) starting at the very top of the leadership, makes it very difficult to address the problems and to take decisive action against ANC leaders in government.

Tony Yengeni, due to his admirable role in the struggle, is carried shoulder high to prison. President Jacob Zuma, due to his admirable stance against the dictatorial tendencies of the former President, is elected as leader of the movement despite the fact that he took money from a crook, did favors for that crook and then submitted a fake loan agreement to Parliament to try and justify this. Ebrahim Rasool is accused of handing out brown envelopes to journalists and, because of his good work in the Western Cape, is appointed as ambassador to Washington. MP’s abuse the travel scheme of Parliament, is convicted and remain in their positions.

The list is endless.

The only way the ANC is going to address the problems so frankly and admirably highlighted in the discussion documents is to fundamentally change its prevailing culture which rewards (or at least turns a blind eye) to transgressions, illegality and even criminality.

What is needed is a body (perhaps an improved version of the Scorpions) that will vigorously and impartial investigate corruption, nepotism and the like across the board. Such a body should instill fear in the hearts of every official and politician – whether it is the President or a ward councillor in Lusikisiki. For such a body to have any effect, no one should feel safe from investigation and prosecution. And once a person is investigated and successfully prosecuted he or she should be expelled from the movement – at least for a certain period.

But because the problem seems so widespread (one could say endemic) – as is made clear by the ANC discussion document – it will be very difficult if not impossible for the ANC to take this rout. That is why the Scorpions was abolished and, I would suggest, why the ANC is trying to tighten its grip on the media. Many ANC leaders understand that it has a problem and know that the movement is incapable of dealing with it effectively. The next best thing is therefore to try and hide this fact from the electorate.

But because we live in an open and democratic society this will not be possible. The attempts by the ANC to deal with the firmly entrenched master narrative (a narrative that suggests the ANC has become corrupt and heartless) by muzzling the media is therefore doomed to failure. But I guess some in the ANC believe it is worth a try.

Would Media Appeals Tribunal be constitutional?

Aug 18th, 2010
by Pierre De Vos.
51 comments

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 such a law subjected the printed media to the dictates of a MAP, would this limitation on the freedom of expression be justifiable in terms of our Bill of Rights?

The short and somewhat unsatisfactory answer is that it is far too early to answer this question.

The various ANC proposals for a MAP and the various justifications for this Tribunal have been so confusing and contradictory that it is impossible to say what such a Tribunal would actually be empowered to adjudicate on, how it would be constituted and what its powers might be.

Last week Julius Malema stated that the ANC has already decided on such a Tribunal and that it wants Parliament to appoint it. He seemed to envisage that such a Tribunal would prevent the printed media from publishing certain facts which had been denied by politicians (and those lucky individuals connected to politicians) because such facts would be “mere gossip”.

These people [members of the printed media] are dangerous. They write gossip and present it as facts.

President Jacob Zuma, citing his experiences in Russia (that bastion of freedom of expression, respect for human rights and democracy), indicated last week that such a Tribunal would protect politicians from the publication of facts about their “private lives”. This is a contradiction in terms, as in an open and democratic society only the most intimate aspects of a politicians’ life can be said always to be truly private. (Of course, President Zuma has a vested interest in stopping the media from reporting on his private life, given the fact that his private life is rather adventurous and does not always conform to what he claims to believe when he speaks in public.)

He has also argued that the media tramples on peoples rights (by which I take him to mean the rights of politicians and their friends) to human dignity.

He continued by suggesting that the problem with the media was not only that it sometimes reported badly or even wrongly on events: it was ideological. Because some in the printed media do not agree with everything ANC leaders do and say, they are not in tune with the South African public. As President Zuma wrote:

The media must seriously conduct an introspection (sic) and open a constructive debate about the role of this institution in a post-apartheid South Africa. Is the media a mirror of South African society? Is it in touch with what the majority of South Africans feel and think? Does this institution actually know and understand South Africans? Why was it surprised by the explosion of national pride during the Soccer World Cup tournament? Why did South Africans decide to rise above the daily diet of negativity and defeatism that they are fed daily in the media?

So what is it to be? Will a Tribunal take over the role of the Press Ombudsman – but with enhanced powers? Will it censor journalists to stop them reporting “gossip” or other facts that are routinely denied by the well connected and the powerful? Will it be used to ensure that the media change its ideological stripes so that it becomes more compliant and in touch with what the majority of South Africans (read, members of the ANC) feel and think?

Before we have answers to these questions (on which the various ANC cadres who have commented on the need for a MAP seem to differ) it is not really possible to say whether the MAP has any chance of passing constitutional muster. A few preliminary points may be of interest though.

First, a MAP empowered to adjudicate on and punish members of the printed media will have to be independent. If it is not independent, it will be unconstitutional. A body appointed by Parliament will not be independent as it will in effect be appointed by the majority party.

If the proposed law therefore creates a MAP appointed by Parliament and that law empowers the MAP to punish journalists and newspapers, the law would be dead in the water. The limitation on press freedom would be so egregious that it could never be justifiable in an open and democratic society (although it might be well received in Russia) and would therefore not be found to be justifiable by our Constitutional Court.

Second, a MAP – even an independent one – that is empowered to address the perceived ideological impurity of some sections in the media will also be dead in the water. The very essence of media freedom hinges on the prohibition of state interference with the ideological content of what the media publishes. If the President does not like the attitude or ideological perspective of some in the media he has every right to complain and moan and shout about it. He can also make reasonable arguments about why the media is too cynical, hysterical or negative about South Africa.

But in the end – from a constitutional perspective, at least –  he (or the legislature) has no power to interfere with the media to try and change the way it reports on what is happening in South Africa. If a newspaper only wants to report on corruption, crime, and how evil the ANC is, it has a constitutional right to do so (I might not buy that paper, but many others – with money to burn – probably will).

Just as members of the media can complain about the ANC but cannot tell the ANC what to think or do, so the ANC can complain about the media but cannot tell it what to write and what not to write. If the ANC wants to get the media to be more positive and less hysterical it needs to convince the media to do so through persuasion, charm and - just a thought – through good governance.

Third, if the MAP will be empowered to address the possible infringement of the dignity of individuals by the media, this might also be constitutionally problematic. At the moment courts are legally empowered to deal with this through our defamation laws. The Constitutional Court has developed our common law of defamation to bring it in line with the guarantees of media freedom and it is now far more difficult for any person – including any politician – successfully to sue the media for defamation.

If the MAT is required to apply a less onerous standard when it deals with complaints about the infringement of the human dignity of anyone, this would therefore most probably also be unconstitutional. If a court cannot impose a stricter standard to punish the media for defamation, then a MAP – who will always be less indpendent than a court – will never be constitutionally allowed to do so.

These preliminary remarks indicate that there is very little that the proposed MAP could legally and constitutionally do that the existing Press Ombudsman or the courts cannot already do. This suggests that the members of Parliament will waste lots and lots of their time – time perhaps better spent attending to the concerns of constituents about potholes, trigger happy policeman, lack of toilets and running water and dysfunctional schools. The legislature will thus either pass a law creating a MAP that will not change anything, or it will pass a law creating a MAP that would be unconstitutional and therefore would be declared invalid by our courts.

The question to ask (but maybe not of the Chief State Law Advisor) is: why bother?

Somewhere in the wild, wild, East

Aug 5th, 2010
by Pierre De Vos.
209 comments

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 Amendment Act, the security police, also known as the Special Branch, were given the authority to arrest anyone they suspected of being engaged or involved in any act against the State and to hold them incommunicado for 90 days at a time. The Act was often used to detain people for longer periods. Detainees would be “released” for a few seconds before they were “re-arrested” and detained for another 90 days.

When this process of being released and then re-arrested proved to be too cumbersome, the government introduced and passed the 180-Day Detention Act (the Criminal Procedure Amendment Act, Number 96 of 1965). Eventually, this 180-day law would be replaced yet again by the Terrorism Act, Number 83 of 1967, which allowed the government to detain individuals indefinitely until all questions had been answered satisfactorily or no further purpose could be achieved by holding the detainees.

Thankfully, section 12(1)(b) of the South African Constitution now prohibits anyone from being detained without trial. We do not live in apartheid South Africa anymore and we all have rights now. The police are not allowed to detain or torture us. This means, as a general rule, a detained person must be charged or released at his or her first appearance in court. In terms of section 35 of the Bill of Rights (read with section 50 of the Criminal Procedure Act) if no charge is brought, the person must be released or may “be informed of the reason for his or her further detention”.

This implies that the Bill of Rights does allows for an unspecified period of detention of uncharged detainees – but only in the most exceptional circumstances. Where a terror suspect who might have planned blowing up the Union Building or assassinating the President, is arrested and charges are still being investigated against that suspect, he might be detained. However, the detained person retains the right to bail and the right to challenge the lawfulness of the detention. This will entitle a person to approach a court at any time to apply for trial or contest the lawfulness of the detention. Where prosecutors determine that there is no case against a detained person, it is illegal to continue detaining that person.

In the light of the above, the arrest and (at the time of writing) continued detention of Sunday Times journalist Mzilikazi wa Afrika seem quite shocking. The arrest and detention (somewhere in Mpumalanga) of wa Africa raise many serious questions about the commitment of the current government to uphold the rights of citizens and the possible abuse of the police to cover up corruption and intimidate the media.

At this point, one does not have sufficient information to know for certain that wa Africa is being held illegally in detention without trial – as alleged by the Sunday Times in a statement posted on heir website – and whether the Hawks have unlawfully arrested him for an ulterior purpose. Whether he is a thoroughly bad man who will one day be convicted of the most despicable crimes, or whether he is an innocent victim of the most flagrant abuse of state power, is not yet known.

Nevertheless, the fact that wa Africa co-wrote an article alleging that Police Commissioner Bheki Cele (what is it with South African Police Commissioners and the law?) signed a R500 million lease for the Police to rent a new building without following tender procedures, must make every reasonable South African very suspicious indeed. This ongoing saga raises several serious and disturbing questions.

Is it true – as reported by the media – that wa Africa was arrested for fraud because he was in possession of a fabricated letter – faxed to the Sunday Times – purporting to show that the Premier of Mpumalanga intended to resign? If this is the case, then wa Africa should never have been arrested as it is not a crime in South Africa to be in possession of a fraudulent letter.

Is it true – once again as reported in the media – that this morning prosecutors met with wa Africa’s lawyers and the prosecutors decided that he had no case to answer, but that the police then refused to release him? Is it further true that the police “held further discussions” with the prosecutors, who then decided to charge him after all? If this is so, why would prosecutors who had decided there was no case to answer change their minds? Was there unlawful interference in the work of the NPA and was unlawful pressure placed on prosecutors to have wa Africa prosecuted despite the fact that they do not believe that he has a case to answer.

Why was wa Africa arrested at all and why, at the time of writing, is he still being detained? It is extremely unusual for a suspect in an ordinary fraud case who has arranged with police to meet with them and who poses no flight risk and no immediate risk to the community, to be arrested and detained for two days without appearing in court. On the available evidence, at the very least, this arrest appears unnecessarily high-handed.

Is it pure co-incidence that wa Africa was arrested in this high-handed and seemingly unnecessary manner a day after the Police Commissioner Bheki Cele referred to him as a “very shady journalist” for co-writing the article in which it was hinted that Cele is corrupt? Even more bizarrely, this happened in the same week in which the previous police commissioner was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for corruption. Someone a bit more suspicious than myself might wonder whether Cele had learnt his lesson from Selebi and was taking pre-emptive measures to avoid Selebi’s fate.

Hopefully, all these questions will be answered in a satisfactorily manner and it will turn out that the justifiable fears raised by the arrest and the subsequent detention of wa Africa were entirely misplaced. For the sake of our country and our future, I sincerely hope that this is the case. It would be rather scary once again to live in a country where the police does not act in terms of the law and where individuals who are critical of the state can be detained without trial.

To be honest, for the first time since we became free in 1994, I am running a bit scared.

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