MMA speaks out against gagging order, offensive remarks

Transparency not secrecy

On Friday, 29 October 2010, the North Gauteng High Court granted an interdict application against the Sunday Independent. It prevented the newspaper from running a story that allegedly dealt with "malfeasance and violation of laws by the SAPS crime intelligence."

According to MMA, there is no way of knowing whether there were legitimate national security reasons as to why elements of the story could not be published. It adds that it is hard to know whether the court that granted the interdict order was in any better position to make such a judgment, in the absence of defence representation. Surely a decision to gag a newspaper can only be made in the most serious of circumstances and when all the evidence is produced and examined?

It's also regrettable, states the MMA, that the Sunday Independent did not go into more detail explaining what had happened and how it came to pass that its story was censored, without its lawyers being in a position to argue the case for publication.

MMA is very concerned that the manner in which the Sunday Independent was censored provides another example of a tendency towards secrecy, rather than transparency. Surely in the current environment, where there are serious concerns on the impact of the Protection of Information Bill on investigate journalism, courts should ensure that a decision to censor content is made only when it is in full possession of all the facts, and arguments from both sides have been heard?

Reminders of Rwanda

MMA believes that Julius Malema's comparison of Premier Helen Zille to a cockroach is offensive, inappropriate and grossly insensitive, given the word's use and hideous connotations during the genocide in Rwanda, where it was used to incite the killing of Tutsis.

Malema's comments may not constitute hate speech as defined by in the Constitution. Unprotected speech must constitute both hatred and incitement to cause harm. Indeed it appears that the ANCYL leader was careful to qualify his language so that it could not be interpreted as such, by clarifying that "to bring Doom"...means "voting for the ANC" and not to incite harm as might otherwise be interpreted.

What is clear however is that given our current context of racism and xenophobia and given our country's history of dehumanisation on the basis of race, for the leader of the ANC Youth League at a celebration event and in the presence of the President, to make such comments is deeply concerning.

Director of MMA, William Bird asked, "What kind of message does it send to ordinary South Africans that the leader of the opposition can be dehumanised and that the democratic process that put her in government can be so crassly trashed by the leader of the youth league of the majority party with the President looking on?"

MMA has a proud history of independent analysis and commentary and wishes to reiterate that its condemnation of Malema's offensive speech does not indicate any level of support for the Democratic Alliance or its leader. Rather its critique is based on its view that all people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. To dehumanise another is neither clever nor strategic, it is a technique most commonly found during periods of conflict and war. However audiences may choose to interpret these comments, it would be difficult to imagine how they could be read to be in any way supportive of democratic discourse, debate and nation building. The MMA calls on our President to condemn these comments and for the ANC to take the appropriate action in line with its internal policies and procedures.