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posted by ethnopunk @ 5:21 AM
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Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
MIH Naspers (Media24) a listed NYSE company may be in contravention of South Africa's TRC laws.
Cape Town: MIH Naspers (Media24) the global media group and one-time spokesperson for apartheid may be in contravention of Truth and Reconciliation laws enacted to pressurise individuals, as well as groups, into making fuller submissions about their role under apartheid. This despite a belated attempt to engage with so-called Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) in an effort to forestall criticism of the company's failures in this regard.
According to Vivier Jacobs, Acting Deputy Director: Victim Support TRC Unit of South Africa's Dept of Justice and Constitutional Development, "(Naspers) did not make any submissions to the TRC. Instead, they provided the TRC with a copy of Oor grense heen, the official history of Naspers." As far as we can tell, "that's where their participation ended." The unit is looking into the legal status of the media group, following a request from the Alternative Media Forum's "Campaign Against Corporate Apartheid".
The campaign seeks to address issues related to racial segregation and discrimination within the corporate context, and believes a broader focus on equal opportunity in society is needed, this is in addition to ideals such as empowerment and employment equity. Furthermore, local and international companies whose participation in the apartheid system is a matter of public record, are being asked to come clean on their activities, so that South Africans of all persuasions, can move forward.
Naspers/Media24 were once considered the bastion of Afrikanerdom. For years Media24 titles such as Volksblad and Oostelig, preached racial segregation and vehemently supported the National Party regime. Although the company began to transform following president PW Botha's tricameral parliament, their recent efforts to escape the past have merely lent credence to claims that the Media24 is still practicing a form of petty apartheid.
While Die Burger remains a title mostly for whites and coloured "people of mixed descent", titles such as City Press and City Vision are targeted exclusively at a black market."Without equal opportunity, ordinary South African's are stuck in their jobs, unable to move up the corporate ladder, and although some new faces are being appointed to boardrooms, the creation of new elites prevents mobility. The country still suffers from widespread unemployment caused as a result of the denial of basic human rights, opportunities which should be available to all, according to merit and ability, are instead being awarded under a perverse rephrasing of apartheid. Some companies have merely shifted their human resources to the right. Let's not make skin colour the basis for our country's development." says David Robert Lewis, spokesperson for the campaign.
Lewis added that, "an invisible barrier exists" and he challenged "anyone to cross the line separating black from white." He also said South African's needed "grassroots reconciliation outside the boardroom, not merely redeployment of past grievances in economic deals that are all pie in the sky." With no attempt being made to break down the racial categories and classification systems produced by Apartheid's social engineers, and despite the announcement of a billion rand BEE deal, Media24 stands accused of racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination.
One should also note that the MIH Naspers (Media24) group have tried to gag the Alternative Media Forum from publishing incriminating evidence, related in part to Media24 involvement and activities during apartheid. A response from the group's legal department to an AltMediaF reply to the groups own legal brief, is still pending. A return date has been set down, for the close of business on the September 29, 2006, and AltMediaF will make further announcements, including directions on the way forward, after this date.
ALTERNATIVE MEDIA FORUM
CAMPAIGN AGAINST CORPORATE APARTHEID
PO BOX 4398 , CAPE TOWN 8000, RSA
MOBILE +27+82+425-1454
medialternatives@yahoo.co.uk
According to Vivier Jacobs, Acting Deputy Director: Victim Support TRC Unit of South Africa's Dept of Justice and Constitutional Development, "(Naspers) did not make any submissions to the TRC. Instead, they provided the TRC with a copy of Oor grense heen, the official history of Naspers." As far as we can tell, "that's where their participation ended." The unit is looking into the legal status of the media group, following a request from the Alternative Media Forum's "Campaign Against Corporate Apartheid".
The campaign seeks to address issues related to racial segregation and discrimination within the corporate context, and believes a broader focus on equal opportunity in society is needed, this is in addition to ideals such as empowerment and employment equity. Furthermore, local and international companies whose participation in the apartheid system is a matter of public record, are being asked to come clean on their activities, so that South Africans of all persuasions, can move forward.
Naspers/Media24 were once considered the bastion of Afrikanerdom. For years Media24 titles such as Volksblad and Oostelig, preached racial segregation and vehemently supported the National Party regime. Although the company began to transform following president PW Botha's tricameral parliament, their recent efforts to escape the past have merely lent credence to claims that the Media24 is still practicing a form of petty apartheid.
While Die Burger remains a title mostly for whites and coloured "people of mixed descent", titles such as City Press and City Vision are targeted exclusively at a black market."Without equal opportunity, ordinary South African's are stuck in their jobs, unable to move up the corporate ladder, and although some new faces are being appointed to boardrooms, the creation of new elites prevents mobility. The country still suffers from widespread unemployment caused as a result of the denial of basic human rights, opportunities which should be available to all, according to merit and ability, are instead being awarded under a perverse rephrasing of apartheid. Some companies have merely shifted their human resources to the right. Let's not make skin colour the basis for our country's development." says David Robert Lewis, spokesperson for the campaign.
Lewis added that, "an invisible barrier exists" and he challenged "anyone to cross the line separating black from white." He also said South African's needed "grassroots reconciliation outside the boardroom, not merely redeployment of past grievances in economic deals that are all pie in the sky." With no attempt being made to break down the racial categories and classification systems produced by Apartheid's social engineers, and despite the announcement of a billion rand BEE deal, Media24 stands accused of racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination.
One should also note that the MIH Naspers (Media24) group have tried to gag the Alternative Media Forum from publishing incriminating evidence, related in part to Media24 involvement and activities during apartheid. A response from the group's legal department to an AltMediaF reply to the groups own legal brief, is still pending. A return date has been set down, for the close of business on the September 29, 2006, and AltMediaF will make further announcements, including directions on the way forward, after this date.
ALTERNATIVE MEDIA FORUM
CAMPAIGN AGAINST CORPORATE APARTHEID
PO BOX 4398 , CAPE TOWN 8000, RSA
MOBILE +27+82+425-1454
medialternatives@yahoo.co.uk
posted by ethnopunk @ 6:19 AM
1 comments
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Attorney appointed to represent victim of Media24 gagging
THE Cape Law Society has appointed Abraham's and Gross to represent David Lewis in the ongoing Media24 dispute around freedom of expression -- the rights of corporations versus civil rights. After meeting with legal council on Tuesday, this week, Lewis said he was "hopeful some action can be expected around the issue of their public retraction of a legal brief alleging defamation". If not, we dare say we have an effective legal system in this country that protects freedom of expression -- our nation's civil rights, our common heritage but rather one which caters solely to the needs of the wealthy and super-rich. With any luck, this pro bono exercise will prove that equal opportunity and even individualism is alive and kicking, and equality before the law applies to rich and poor.
posted by ethnopunk @ 5:10 AM
0 comments
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Campaign Against Corporate Apartheid (CACA)
CORPORATE South Africa has not yet transformed to the degree where we can safely say apartheid no longer exists, or racist behaviour and other forms of racism in the workplace are no longer significant issues. While empowerment deals have broadened from their original elitist and chauvinist aspirations, they have tended to be cosmetic and misrepresent the interests of those "empowered" but with no effective control over management decisions.
Corporate policies continue to reinforce segregation and racial divisions in our society instead of cutting across the colour lines separating us into various racial and ethnic groups. Equal opportunity for example, is still being subsumed under the mantra of "separate but equal" in the strange, twisted logic of the system bequeathed to us by the apartheid regime. What is more, South Africa's conglomerates have deployed a global strategy which seeks to escape significant empowerment while ignoring the all-important debate concerning equal opportunity and local affirmative action criteria. Diversity remains an ideal spoken about only in the most progressive of boardrooms.
The Campaign Against Corporate Apartheid (CACA) will seek to address issues such as the foreign listing of local companies who wish to escape broad-based empowerment and the use of multiple holdings to prevent real grassroots reform. It will target cosmetic change and misrepresentation of transformation and equal opportunity in shareholder documents. It will also raise debate around issues such as the "Anglo-American system" of corporate governance which fails to recognise the interests of workers, managers, suppliers, customers, and the community at large.
Some economists favour a more coordinated approach such as the current European model which seeks to avoid market fascism and the unavoidable sacrifice of local, community standards in favour of a one-size fits-all global marketplace. A market in which democracy and equality are seen as distant cousins to the overall quest for profit. Global corporations have all to often covered the wool over people's aspirations, persuaded by investors that money-making and expansion comes before ethical and justicable norms.
The Campaign Against Corporate Apartheid intends exposing both the hypocrisy and short-sightedness of this approach by tackling some of the worst corporate offenders in South Africa. Apartheid has always been bad for business, whether it be practiced by a racist government or the chauvenistic corporations of today.
Campaign Against Corporate Apartheid
C/O
PO Box 4398,
Cape Town 8000,
Republic of South Africa
Corporate policies continue to reinforce segregation and racial divisions in our society instead of cutting across the colour lines separating us into various racial and ethnic groups. Equal opportunity for example, is still being subsumed under the mantra of "separate but equal" in the strange, twisted logic of the system bequeathed to us by the apartheid regime. What is more, South Africa's conglomerates have deployed a global strategy which seeks to escape significant empowerment while ignoring the all-important debate concerning equal opportunity and local affirmative action criteria. Diversity remains an ideal spoken about only in the most progressive of boardrooms.
The Campaign Against Corporate Apartheid (CACA) will seek to address issues such as the foreign listing of local companies who wish to escape broad-based empowerment and the use of multiple holdings to prevent real grassroots reform. It will target cosmetic change and misrepresentation of transformation and equal opportunity in shareholder documents. It will also raise debate around issues such as the "Anglo-American system" of corporate governance which fails to recognise the interests of workers, managers, suppliers, customers, and the community at large.
Some economists favour a more coordinated approach such as the current European model which seeks to avoid market fascism and the unavoidable sacrifice of local, community standards in favour of a one-size fits-all global marketplace. A market in which democracy and equality are seen as distant cousins to the overall quest for profit. Global corporations have all to often covered the wool over people's aspirations, persuaded by investors that money-making and expansion comes before ethical and justicable norms.
The Campaign Against Corporate Apartheid intends exposing both the hypocrisy and short-sightedness of this approach by tackling some of the worst corporate offenders in South Africa. Apartheid has always been bad for business, whether it be practiced by a racist government or the chauvenistic corporations of today.
Campaign Against Corporate Apartheid
C/O
PO Box 4398,
Cape Town 8000,
Republic of South Africa
posted by ethnopunk @ 6:16 AM
0 comments
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Fxi support against gagging of community journalist
The following is a statement from the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXi) regarding the gagging of David Robert Lewis and threat of a defamation suit. For the record, Lewis considers anti-semitism to be a form of racism, and islamophobia is also racism.
29 August 2006
Hein Brand, Managing Director, Media24, hbrand@media24.com
Jan Malherbe, Media24 Newspapers Chief Executive, jmalherbe@media24.com
Neil Jansen, Human Resources General Manager, Media24, njansen@media24.com
Dear Messrs Brand, Malherbe and Jansen
Re: Media24’s threats against your former employee, David Lewis
We have been dismayed that Media24 has sought to muzzle one of your former employees, David Lewis, with threats of a defamation suit and of being interdicted by yourselves.
Mr Lewis had been an employee of Media24, working as a page sub for certain of its Cape Town publications. He has complained of racial divisions in the newsroom in which he worked and of various forms of racism in the company. We do not wish to engage with the merits of this complaint.
In June this year, a group calling itself the Alternative Media Forum began distributing a leaflet entitled “Ja Baas!” The leaflet refers to Media 24’s publications and claims that, “Naspers and Media24 is a racist and prejudiced company, here only for a quick buck. It has paid lip service to diversity and equality in the workplace and continues to discriminate.” (The allegations in this leaflet, too, it is not our objective to engage with or to prove or disprove.)
Your company responded to this leaflet by sending Mr Lewis an attorney’s letter (from Jan S. De Villers Attorneys, dated 26 June 2006) which claims that he is distributing the pamphlet and accusing him of defaming Media24. The attorney’s letter threatens Mr Lewis with an urgent application for an interdict to prevent him from distributing the pamphlets and notes that Media24 “reserves the right to institute an action for damages” against Mr Lewis for “the defamatory remarks” in the pamphlet. We find both the tone and substance of the attorney’s letter to be intimidatory and an attempt to violate the free expression of a member of the public.
Section 16 of the South African Constitution guarantees all South African citizens the right to free expression when it states:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes –
freedom of the press and other media;
freedom to receive or impart information or ideas;
freedom of artistic creativity; and
academic freedom and freedom of scientific research.” This right has, furthermore, been upheld in numerous court judgements – including in judgements issued by the Constitutional Court, the highest court in South Africa. For example, the Supreme Court of Appeals made a strong statement in affirming the right to freedom of expression in the Bogoshi case, just as the Constitutional Court did in the Holomisa case.
As a media company (“Africa’s leading publishing group,” as you refer to yourselves), you should understand the critical importance of freedom of expression in the South African context and the need to vigorously guard it from any and all sectors of our society that might seek to subvert it. It is not a right that should be undermined – certainly not by the media whose very existence and work are dependant on the highest respect and adherence to this right.
It is extremely disconcerting, therefore, that Media24 has chosen to resort to threats (such as those contained in your attorney’s letter) in order to silence a journalist and, in so doing, is undermining a value and right that it should be protecting and defending.
Recently, the media came out in full support of protests launched by the Freedom of Expression Institute, South African National Editors Forum and the Media Institute of Southern Africa against the Film and Publications Amendment Bill. A number of your media jumped on the bandwagon too. And, through Sanef, a number of your editors and senior journalists have taken a strong position on the matter of freedom of expression. One of your own publications, City
Press, stated that:
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Politicians will always try to limit the powers of the media. Even in well-established democracies, politicians still try to take away rights by arguing that some rights are not good for citizens. It is for this reason that we should all jealously guard the freedoms that we have secured through our supreme law – the Constitution.”
It is sad to note that while we are all concerned about politicians taking away the rights of the media, some media want to take away the right to free expression of journalists and other citizens. To “jealously guard the freedoms that we have secured through … the Constitution” means securing those freedoms for all people, not just ourselves. The Western Cape convenor of Sanef (and one of your columnists and a former editor of one of your publications), Lizette Rabe, wrote more than one column on News24 about the Bill. In one, she correctly wrote: “Freedom of expression and freedom of the media is a fundamental part of any definition about democracy.” We wonder what her response would be to your attempts at subverting the free expression of your former employee.
We want also to point out that your accusations of defamation against Mr Lewis are as worrying as they are spurious. Wits journalism professor, Anton Harber, wrote last month, “Defamation will be the battleground for the media freedom wars of the foreseeable future.” It seems that Media24 is intent on proving Professor Harber correct – but in ways that we doubt even he expected. The use of the defamation stick on your part is an indication of your desperation in wanting to silence Mr Lewis’ criticism (correct or not) of your company.
You also realise, of course, that Mr Lewis is easily able to use the defences of truth, public interest and fair comment in this case – despite your attorney’s claim that the pamphlet “exceed[s] the parameters of fair comment”. We doubt that you would want to come up against these defences in court – the very defences that you as a media institution would rely on were you to be sued for defamation.
Furthermore, we are of the opinion that companies and other non-natural persons cannot be defamed under the law. As such, your accusation against Mr Lewis is clearly meant simply to intimidate him into self-censorship, another theme that many of your senior journalists have been writing a lot about recently.
As an institution that works for the protection of freedom of expression in South Africa and the rest of the African continent, we cannot allow such intimidation – whether it is of the media or of individual journalists. We have, therefore, pledged our support to Mr Lewis in his attempts to defend himself against your charges and attempts at intimidation.
We encourage you to spare yourselves the embarrassment of being viewed as a media institution that wants to subvert freedom of expression. You should immediately give Mr Lewis an assurance of the withdrawal of the attorney’s letter and an assurance that you do not plan to take any legal action against him. Your failure to do so will certainly result in a view developing of Media24 as being hypocritical on the question of free expression and of supporting it only in respect of itself but without consideration of that right for other people.
If you wish to discuss this matter further, please do not hesitate to contact either of us.
Yours sincerely
__________________ _______________
Na’eem Jeenah Simon Delaney
Head: Anti-Censorship Programme Head: Law Clinic
29 August 2006
Hein Brand, Managing Director, Media24, hbrand@media24.com
Jan Malherbe, Media24 Newspapers Chief Executive, jmalherbe@media24.com
Neil Jansen, Human Resources General Manager, Media24, njansen@media24.com
Dear Messrs Brand, Malherbe and Jansen
Re: Media24’s threats against your former employee, David Lewis
We have been dismayed that Media24 has sought to muzzle one of your former employees, David Lewis, with threats of a defamation suit and of being interdicted by yourselves.
Mr Lewis had been an employee of Media24, working as a page sub for certain of its Cape Town publications. He has complained of racial divisions in the newsroom in which he worked and of various forms of racism in the company. We do not wish to engage with the merits of this complaint.
In June this year, a group calling itself the Alternative Media Forum began distributing a leaflet entitled “Ja Baas!” The leaflet refers to Media 24’s publications and claims that, “Naspers and Media24 is a racist and prejudiced company, here only for a quick buck. It has paid lip service to diversity and equality in the workplace and continues to discriminate.” (The allegations in this leaflet, too, it is not our objective to engage with or to prove or disprove.)
Your company responded to this leaflet by sending Mr Lewis an attorney’s letter (from Jan S. De Villers Attorneys, dated 26 June 2006) which claims that he is distributing the pamphlet and accusing him of defaming Media24. The attorney’s letter threatens Mr Lewis with an urgent application for an interdict to prevent him from distributing the pamphlets and notes that Media24 “reserves the right to institute an action for damages” against Mr Lewis for “the defamatory remarks” in the pamphlet. We find both the tone and substance of the attorney’s letter to be intimidatory and an attempt to violate the free expression of a member of the public.
Section 16 of the South African Constitution guarantees all South African citizens the right to free expression when it states:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes –
freedom of the press and other media;
freedom to receive or impart information or ideas;
freedom of artistic creativity; and
academic freedom and freedom of scientific research.” This right has, furthermore, been upheld in numerous court judgements – including in judgements issued by the Constitutional Court, the highest court in South Africa. For example, the Supreme Court of Appeals made a strong statement in affirming the right to freedom of expression in the Bogoshi case, just as the Constitutional Court did in the Holomisa case.
As a media company (“Africa’s leading publishing group,” as you refer to yourselves), you should understand the critical importance of freedom of expression in the South African context and the need to vigorously guard it from any and all sectors of our society that might seek to subvert it. It is not a right that should be undermined – certainly not by the media whose very existence and work are dependant on the highest respect and adherence to this right.
It is extremely disconcerting, therefore, that Media24 has chosen to resort to threats (such as those contained in your attorney’s letter) in order to silence a journalist and, in so doing, is undermining a value and right that it should be protecting and defending.
Recently, the media came out in full support of protests launched by the Freedom of Expression Institute, South African National Editors Forum and the Media Institute of Southern Africa against the Film and Publications Amendment Bill. A number of your media jumped on the bandwagon too. And, through Sanef, a number of your editors and senior journalists have taken a strong position on the matter of freedom of expression. One of your own publications, City
Press, stated that:
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Politicians will always try to limit the powers of the media. Even in well-established democracies, politicians still try to take away rights by arguing that some rights are not good for citizens. It is for this reason that we should all jealously guard the freedoms that we have secured through our supreme law – the Constitution.”
It is sad to note that while we are all concerned about politicians taking away the rights of the media, some media want to take away the right to free expression of journalists and other citizens. To “jealously guard the freedoms that we have secured through … the Constitution” means securing those freedoms for all people, not just ourselves. The Western Cape convenor of Sanef (and one of your columnists and a former editor of one of your publications), Lizette Rabe, wrote more than one column on News24 about the Bill. In one, she correctly wrote: “Freedom of expression and freedom of the media is a fundamental part of any definition about democracy.” We wonder what her response would be to your attempts at subverting the free expression of your former employee.
We want also to point out that your accusations of defamation against Mr Lewis are as worrying as they are spurious. Wits journalism professor, Anton Harber, wrote last month, “Defamation will be the battleground for the media freedom wars of the foreseeable future.” It seems that Media24 is intent on proving Professor Harber correct – but in ways that we doubt even he expected. The use of the defamation stick on your part is an indication of your desperation in wanting to silence Mr Lewis’ criticism (correct or not) of your company.
You also realise, of course, that Mr Lewis is easily able to use the defences of truth, public interest and fair comment in this case – despite your attorney’s claim that the pamphlet “exceed[s] the parameters of fair comment”. We doubt that you would want to come up against these defences in court – the very defences that you as a media institution would rely on were you to be sued for defamation.
Furthermore, we are of the opinion that companies and other non-natural persons cannot be defamed under the law. As such, your accusation against Mr Lewis is clearly meant simply to intimidate him into self-censorship, another theme that many of your senior journalists have been writing a lot about recently.
As an institution that works for the protection of freedom of expression in South Africa and the rest of the African continent, we cannot allow such intimidation – whether it is of the media or of individual journalists. We have, therefore, pledged our support to Mr Lewis in his attempts to defend himself against your charges and attempts at intimidation.
We encourage you to spare yourselves the embarrassment of being viewed as a media institution that wants to subvert freedom of expression. You should immediately give Mr Lewis an assurance of the withdrawal of the attorney’s letter and an assurance that you do not plan to take any legal action against him. Your failure to do so will certainly result in a view developing of Media24 as being hypocritical on the question of free expression and of supporting it only in respect of itself but without consideration of that right for other people.
If you wish to discuss this matter further, please do not hesitate to contact either of us.
Yours sincerely
__________________ _______________
Na’eem Jeenah Simon Delaney
Head: Anti-Censorship Programme Head: Law Clinic
posted by ethnopunk @ 4:04 AM
0 comments
Sunday, August 27, 2006
DISCRIMINATION 24
DISCRIMINATION 24, the global media company accused of corporate apartheid is going to be rendered ungovernable by THE MEDIA HACKERS BALL who are holding GROOT BAAS/BIG BOSS Ton Vosloo and Koos Bekker responsible for racism, anti-semitism and prejudice within the company. We are planning an international campaign that will include corporate sanctions and the use of satire, acts of humour, social gags and whatever we can lay our hands on. Bloggers are invited to submit their own cartoons and images, and a more comprehensive web-site is being planned in solidarity with the Alternative Media Forum who are under attack by various employees of the company, and in particular to assist convener David Robert Lewis who is facing a gagging order preventing him from speaking on the subject.
posted by ethnopunk @ 7:14 AM
0 comments
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Media convener may be jailed for contempt
CAPE TOWN: The convener of South Africa's Alternative Media Forum may be jailed for contempt of court for speaking out about racism in a media company, unless a means of defending him against a pending legal action is found and legal council secured. If an urgent interdict and gagging order is granted to Naspers MIH i.e. Media24, the global media corporation, the police may be given licence to jail Lewis and other media activists who form part of the NGO pitted against the corporation, for an automatic 21 days for contempt of court.
Media24 corporate executives have only to phone their local cop-shop and allege infringement to be given the full force of the law which currently discriminates against individuals in favour of large corporations, and this despite allegations of racial profiling and segregation in the workplace.
Horror stories of jailed activists abound. Take the experience of Max Ntanyana who was interdicted from speaking and writing against forced evictions and even prevented from participating in meetings of the anti-eviction campaign. He failed to contest the interdict and thus brok a court order by continuing in the campaign, only to end up spending about 9 months in the country's toughest prison, Pollsmoor, on various contempt-of-court charges, until finally 2 years later fellow some activists managed to raise the necessary funds to have the conditions of the original interdict overturned.
Surely a denial of civil rights and liberties despite there being constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression and association?
On a lighter note, Na'eem Jeenah of the Freedom of Expression Institute called this morning to offer his support to the campaign. In the event that this all does end up in court, FXi may be appointed amicus. A similar trial against Angloplats is also in the offing, and the principle at stake is this: Corporations should not enjoy the same rights as individuals, and since they are not persons, cannot be defamed!
BREAKING NEWS: Cathryn Reece, the editor of Varsity, the University of Cape Town's student newspaper and a SASPU affiliate has indicated that she intends covering this story which until now has been ignored by the mainstream press.
Media24 corporate executives have only to phone their local cop-shop and allege infringement to be given the full force of the law which currently discriminates against individuals in favour of large corporations, and this despite allegations of racial profiling and segregation in the workplace.
Horror stories of jailed activists abound. Take the experience of Max Ntanyana who was interdicted from speaking and writing against forced evictions and even prevented from participating in meetings of the anti-eviction campaign. He failed to contest the interdict and thus brok a court order by continuing in the campaign, only to end up spending about 9 months in the country's toughest prison, Pollsmoor, on various contempt-of-court charges, until finally 2 years later fellow some activists managed to raise the necessary funds to have the conditions of the original interdict overturned.
Surely a denial of civil rights and liberties despite there being constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression and association?
On a lighter note, Na'eem Jeenah of the Freedom of Expression Institute called this morning to offer his support to the campaign. In the event that this all does end up in court, FXi may be appointed amicus. A similar trial against Angloplats is also in the offing, and the principle at stake is this: Corporations should not enjoy the same rights as individuals, and since they are not persons, cannot be defamed!
BREAKING NEWS: Cathryn Reece, the editor of Varsity, the University of Cape Town's student newspaper and a SASPU affiliate has indicated that she intends covering this story which until now has been ignored by the mainstream press.
posted by ethnopunk @ 2:43 AM
0 comments
