Once again, those who should be upholding the law seem to be ignorant of it - or do they believe themselves above the law? On Friday, 4 February 2011, there were two illegal police attacks on press photographers in Pretoria and Bloemfontein and both the South African National Editors Forum (SANEF) and the Professional Journalists' Association of South Africa (ProJourn) have issued strong statements condemning the assaults and the ignorance of the police with respect to their own regulations (Standing Order 156), especially in the light of recent similar incidents.
Standing Order 156 states, among other things: Police may "under no circumstances" verbally or physically abuse journalists and no cameras or other equipment may be seized, unless this is destined to be an exhibit in court; and police may "under no circumstances whatsoever" wilfully damage the camera, film, recording or other equipment of a journalist. (Source: Mark van der Velden,
The ExtraOrdinary Editor, 2009).
To quote ProJourn: "The assault is all the more disturbing following as it does a week of attacks and intimidation of journalists in Egypt, which ProJourn outright condemns. It also follows too many incidents of police intimidating journalists, arresting them for carrying out their duties, and obstructing them from doing their jobs over the past several years."
Simone Puterman (
@SimoneBiz)
Managing editorPlease send all South African marketing and media news to marketingnews@bizcommunity.com, international news to internationalnews@bizcommunity.com and opinion pieces to contributors-marketing@bizcommunity.com. Responses to this column welcomed in our online editor's column archive.
