Safety & Wellness

The SA National Editors’ Forum is deeply shocked at the death threats and other intimidatory moves against two Sunday Times journalists, Mzilikazi Wa Afrika and Stephan Hofstatter, both of whom have exposed malpractice and corruption by government officials in their newspaper.

SANEF condemns these tactics which are directed not only at the two journalists concerned but to all journalists who have written critically about the questionable conduct of public officials or those in high office in the private sphere.

SANEF has requested a meeting with the Minister of Police, Nathi Mthethwa, in his capacity as head of the Cabinet Security Cluster, to discuss the matter with him and members of the Cluster. It has also requested that he inform members of the Cluster of SANEF’s grave concerns that the two journalists could be seriously harmed if the threats are carried out and that journalists as a whole will feel insecure and intimidated. SANEF has also urged the minister to request all assistance from his colleagues in investigating these shocking incidents.

SANEF welcomes the measures taken by the Sunday Times to protect its staff members and urges all media groups to be especially vigilant to protect their staffs against intimidatory actions of whatever nature.

SANEF supports the call to the police to fully investigate the threats. The fact that one of the threats contains a reference to “hitmen” wearing police uniforms is an added reason for the investigation to be thorough and searching or else the police could be blamed for any untoward activity that is directed at the two men. In any event, the authorities should take note that the manner in which Wa Afrika was arrested by the police recently suggests that there is official antagonism towards him and that the authorities will readily be blamed for any attacks on him.

SANEF calls on the media to show solidarity towards their colleagues when situations become threatening and to be especially vigilant.

The government is urged to take action to protect these and other journalists to ensure that the reputation of SA’s functioning democracy is not harmed by gangster-like actions and assassinations that have damaged other countries.

Issued by the SA National Editors’ Forum (SANEF)

Femida Mehtar
Executive Director
SA National Editors’ Forum (SANEF)
Tel: +27 (0) 11 484 3630 / +27 (0) 11 484 3617
Fax: +27 (0) 11 484 3593
Mobile: +27 (0) 84 784 2006

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SANEF demands drastic disciplinary action against ANC regional chairman who called for burning down of newspaper office

The SA National Editors’ Forum is deeply shocked and concerned at the reported attempt by the African National Congress’s Nelson Mandela Bay regional chairman Nceba Faku to incite ANC supporters to attack and burn down the offices of The Herald newspaper in the city of Port Elizabeth.

The Herald reported that Faku, addressing supporters from the steps of the Port Elizabeth City Hall as they celebrated the ANC’s local government election victory in the city, that the paper was the party’s biggest enemy and then shouted, “Down with The Herald, down! Go and burn The Herald.”

SANEF is concerned at the insipid comment of ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu on Faku’s conduct – he said, if Faku was quoted correctly his statement was “unacceptable”. An attempt to incite people to burn down a newspaper should draw instant repudiation from the party leadership and the instigation of drastic disciplinary action against the person.

Indeed, SANEF calls on President Jacob Zuma to take action against Faku immediately.

SANEF has noted—as have international organizations such as Freedom House and Amnesty International—the growing hostility of the ruling party towards the press. It was one of the reasons Freedom House downgraded South Africa from a “free” country to “partly free” in its review of freedom around the world. In its annual report 2011, Amnesty International raised concerns over threats to freedom of expression in South Africa, citing the unlawful arrest of Sunday Times journalist Mzilikazi wa Afrika after his reports on an alleged hit squad linked to senior Limpopo provincial government members.

There is no indication that these accusations have had any effect on the ANC leadership.

SANEF has noted statements by ANC leaders, including Zuma, that the press is the real opposition and enemy of the ruling party and their attempts to lay the blame for the party’s losses in the local government elections on the media.

SANEF is concerned that leadership hostility towards the media will spread to grassroots ANC supporters and lead to journalists being attacked and injured while carrying out their duties. Already at the Faku meeting, a member of the crowd tried to intimidate a Herald reporter. Aggression against the media will not only endanger journalists and their colleagues in newspaper employment but restrict the ability of the press to inform the public of what is happening in their communities and the nation as a whole.

In addition to the disciplining of Faku, SANEF calls on the government to live up to its constitutional duty to respect and protect the freedom of the press to enable it to carry out its duty to keep the public informed.

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SANEF wants illegal assaults and arrests of journalists dealt with by highest authority

The SA National Editors’ Forum condemns two outrageous illegal police attacks on press photographers in Pretoria and Bloemfontein while they were carrying out their duties of informing the public by picturing incidents in the two cities on Friday, February 4.

Pretoria News Chief Photographer Masi Losi was taking pictures of the police bundling an alleged thief into their police van outside the newspaper’s office after he had been rescued from a mob when one of the policemen, according to Losi, shouted, “He’s taking pictures”.

The policeman’s colleague tried to take Losi’s camera from him. Losi said he was grabbed by the throat and thrown to the ground but fought back. He was pulled back into the building by colleagues who argued with the police over his rights as a photographer.  By then eight police cars had arrived and some 30 police officers tried to storm the Pretoria News office demanding the release of Losi who they wanted to arrest for “interfering” with their work.

Executive editor Jos Charle who had seen the police manhandling Losi refused the police entry and called Gauteng police commissioner Lieut-General Mzwandlile Petros who apparently ordered the police not to arrest Losi and leave the premises.

In Bloemfontein, Volksblad photographer Theo Jeptha came across a group of schoolchildren fighting in the street while two policemen in a police car nearby sat watching without taking action. When he began taking pictures of the fight one of the policemen climbed out of the car and grabbed Jeptha’s camera while bundling him into the back of the vehicle and drove off. After making a cellphone call, the policemen turned the car around and returned to the spot where they released him.

The actions of the police in both instances was clearly illegal and appeared to be motivated by the improper objective of preventing pictures of their conduct in public being published in the newspapers. The Pretoria police claimed that Losi was “defeating the ends of justice by interfering with them” when he was taking pictures of their conduct in a public place and breaking no law.

Petros has reportedly told the Pretoria News that he will investigate the incident.

SANEF, which has complained to the Minister of Police and the national Police Commissioner on more than one occasion about the some dozen similar illegal arrests in the last 18 months—all ending in the cases being thrown out of court—wants the police responsible charged in court and punished. SANEF believes that despite its complaints at high level the police have not been informed of the contents of Police Standing Orders which instruct police officers to aid journalists covering public incidents—just the opposite to assaulting and arresting them.

SANEF treated Sunday Times journalist Mzilikazi wa Afrika on spurious charges of defeating the ends of justice and fraud in August and later in September, a few days after the case against Wa Afrika was thrown out of court, detaining three photographers for 45 minutes for taking pictures outside a police station. Sanef believes that this continuing illegal conduct by the police against the press—which in the Pretoria instance forced the staff to bar the police entry to their building – has taken on such alarming and serious proportions that they merit intervention at the highest level of government.

Accordingly, it is sending this protest to President Jacob Zuma, reminding him that the police conduct constitutes not only serious criminal offences but contravene the key freedom of the press clause in the Constitution (Clause 16) and strike at the heart of the application of the Bill of Rights. SANEF requests President Zuma to take especial note of the Bill of Rights Clauses 7 (2) which states, “The state must respect, protect, promote and fulfil the rights in the Bill of Rights’’ and 8 (1), which states, “The Bill of Rights applies to all law, and binds the legislature, the executive, the judiciary and all organs of state” and to act accordingly.

It is quite clear that these principles are being completely ignored not only by the police officers concerned in the actual incidents but by their superiors by not instilling in members of the police service generally the Constitutional principles and the duties applying specifically to the police as outlined in police Standing Orders.

Issued by the SA National Editors’ Forum (SANEF)

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SA National Editors’ Forum fears government has embarked on campaign to intimidate the Press

The SA National Editors’ Forum supports the Sunday Independent in its intention to request the Inspector General of Intelligence to investigate alleged harassment and intimidation of a number of its journalists by police officers of the Crime Intelligence Division. They were reported to be seeking information about reporters who, in articles in the paper, detailed allegations of nepotism, corruption, fraud and mismanagement at the division.

After the complaint is laid, SANEF urges the Inspector General to investigate the allegations as speedily as possible and to publish the findings. If the allegations are true, SANEF believes the police abused their powers and resorted to unacceptable behaviour.

SANEF has noted increasing criticism of the press by government officials and, in particular, two claims by President Jacob Zuma for damages of R5-million each lodged against the Sunday Times and the Sunday newspaper Rapport for alleged defamation on grounds that he had been humiliated and degraded and his reputation had been harmed.

The complaint against the Sunday Times arose over a cartoon by Zapiro (Jonathan Shapiro) showing Zuma preparing to rape the Lady Justice – assisted by leaders of the tripartite alliance. The cartoon was a metaphor for how Zuma avoided his day in court to answer corruption charges. The Rapport complaint followed publication of a picture showing Zuma in a friendly pose with Afrikaans singer Steve Hofmeyr with a heading satirically naming him as the Zulu chief Dingaan. Zuma claimed the reference damaged his reputation because Dingaan pretended to be friendly to the Afrikaners entering Natal while secretly plotting to murder them.

The remarkable feature of both claims is that of the allegedly offensive material occurred more than two years ago, raising questions about when Zuma felt he had been harmed.

Zuma has already lodged more than a dozen defamation actions against newspapers since 2006 – among them claims against cartoonist Zapiro over his lampooning of Zuma.

The cartoon in the Sunday Times of September 6 2008 which Zuma has cited was the subject of a complaint to the Human Rights Commission which, however, rejected it, exonerating Zapiro of any misconduct and declaring that the subject was an issue in the public domain which enjoyed high public interest.

The fact that Zuma is suing two major newspapers in addition to the others he has taken action against and the police are alleged to be harassing journalists as well as the ANC proposal to establish a media appeals tribunal capable, according to statements by ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu, of imposing jail sentences on journalists and heavy fines on newspaper companies, suggests that the government has embarked on a campaign to intimidate journalists ahead of next year’s local government elections.

If this is indeed the aim of the ANC, SANEF condemns it and reminds the authorities of their constitutional obligations to protect freedom of expression and to promote the freedom of the media.

Issued by SA National Editors’ Forum (SANEF)

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The SA National Editors’ Forum is shocked at the arrest of three press photographers and the manhandling of one of them yesterday by police at Musina, Limpopo, and their being detained for 45 minutes, preventing them from carrying out their duties to take pictures of 11 people accused of being members of a rhino poaching syndicate.

The photographers, one from the national news agency Sapa, another from Beeld and the third an SABC TV cameraman were taking pictures of the suspects as they were being loaded into a police van when, Sapa’s Werner Beukes said, they were told “we were not allowed to take pictures”.

“They took us to the station commander’s office where he told us we were not allowed to take pictures. They were pretty rough with one of the photographers; they literally dragged him in,’’ said Beukes.

He, Beeld photographer Herman Verwey and SABC cameraman Lewellyn Carstens were held for 45 minutes by the station commander, who did not identify himself, but who “told us we were trespassing, even though we were standing outside the premises of the police station when we took the pictures. He kept on telling us that it was his police station and he was the only one who could decide who was allowed to take photos there.’‘

The men were later released after interventions by a prosecutor from the National Prosecuting Authority and acting police Hawks spokesman Colonel Vishnu Naidoo.

SANEF condemns the police conduct, especially as it follows numerous serious complaints to national Police Commissioner Bheki Cele about such intolerable if not illegal treatment being meted out by the police to photographers and journalists for no reason. An aggravating factor is that this bullying conduct took place only days after a Sunday Times journalist was arrested and detained for two days only to have his case thrown out of court.

When such conduct is viewed alongside the passage of a Protection of Information Bill where the authorities are given excessive powers to prevent the publication of information together with ANC plans for a statutory media appeals tribunal with proposals for the imprisonment of journalists it is difficult to avoid concluding that there is a determined authoritarian plan by the government and its officials to severely restrict the publication of news and information and a heavy clamp down on the public’s right to know.

SANEF calls for an apology from the police to the photographers and the firm assurance that police will be ordered to cease these attacks on journalists and that those who act in this way will be severely punished.

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The SA National Editors’ Forum condemns the treatment meted out to Sunday Times reporter Mzilikazi wa Afrika by the police while he was in custody.

SANEF is also appalled at the police’s refusal at first to disclose any information about the reasons for the arrest and their subsequent contradictory statements. It is deeply alarmed at the initial refusal to allow wa Afrika to contact his lawyer; indeed, of deep concern is the attempts by the police to spirit wa Afrika away so that his colleagues and the lawyer could not trace him.

In addition, SANEF chronicles the thuggish behaviour reminiscent of the apartheid state meted out to him, some of it likely to be unconstitutional and in breach of police regulations:

*The arrest being carried out without a warrant being produced;
* His reported questioning by senior police officers, who should know better, at 2am the morning following his arrest, a tactic verging on torture and reminiscent of apartheid’s detention without trial;
* The hostility toward him shown, according to the reports, by some of the questions asked and police responses to his answers, which also disclose attempts to pronounce judgments
on his journalistic role;
* The uncalled for large number of policemen who arrested him actively trying to censor the Press by trying to prevent photographers from taking pictures of the arrest;
* The charges dismissed by three prosecutors on the ground that they had no substance only to their being restored by the Hawks;
* The further development where an original charge against him of fraud and defeating the ends of justice disappeared and was replaced with charges of fraud, forgery and uttering,
indicating remarkable confusion;
* The unjustified refusal to grant bail initially, requiring wa Afrika’s employer, the Sunday Times, to make an urgent application to the High Court which ordered his immediate
release.

SANEF has noted and welcomed Cabinet spokesman Themba Maseko’s assurances that the government has no plans to “muzzle the media in any shape or form”, but asserts with regret that the brutish treatment meted out to wa Afrika by government police officials belies this.

SANEF calls on the Independent Complaints Directorate to look into the police’s conduct in the handling of this case.

Issued by the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF)

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