This post is being circulated on a number of websites and blogs, and is re-posted here in support of a free press in South Africa. The Community of Mandela Rhodes Scholars (CMRS) rejects the actions of Floyd Shivambu based on the CMRS’s commitment to the principle of ethical leadership.
Last week, shocking revelations concerning the activities of ANC Youth League Spokesperson Nyiko Floyd Shivambu came to the fore. According to a letter published in various news outlets, a complaint was laid by 19 political journalists with the secretary-general of the ANC, against Shivambu. This complaint letter detailed attempts by Shivambu to leak a dossier to certain journalists, purporting to expose the money-laundering practices of Dumisane Lubisi, a journalist at City Press. The letter also detailed the intimidation that followed when these journalists refused to publish these revelations.
We condemn in the strongest possible terms the reprisals against journalists by Shivambu. His actions constitute a blatant attack on media freedom and a grave infringement on constitutional rights. It is a disturbing step towards dictatorial rule in South Africa.
We call on the ANC and the ANC Youth League to distance themselves from the actions of Shivambu. The media have, time and again, been a vital democratic safeguard by exposing the actions of individuals who have abused their positions of power for personal and political gain.
The press have played a vital role in the liberation struggle, operating under difficult and often dangerous conditions to document some of the most crucial moments in the struggle against apartheid. It is therefore distressing to note that certain people within the ruling party are willing to maliciously target journalists by invading their privacy and threatening their colleagues in a bid to silence them in their legitimate work.
We also note the breathtaking hubris displayed by Shivambu and ANC Youth League President Julius Malema in their response to the letter of complaint. Shivambu and Malema clearly have no respect for the media and the rights afforded to the media by the Constitution of South Africa. Such a response serves only to reinforce the position that the motive for leaking the so-called dossier was not a legitimate concern, but an insolent effort to intimidate and bully a journalist who had exposed embarrassing information about the youth league president.
We urge the ANC as a whole to reaffirm its commitment to media freedom and other constitutional rights we enjoy as a country.
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With you 100%!
Absolutely!!…
@Bloggers for a free press
Do give a thought to the millions who do not have access to the internet.They are too hungry to blog but rather are looking for meaning in their lives.Lives that were disturbed by dispossession and other ills of colonialism and apartheid.The legacy thereof, the present ANC government has inherited and is trying to correct.
The ball was started rolling through the possible amending of section 25 of the constitution.The rightwing DA has intention already to oppose such a move.The next thing if we try and amend the Minerals Act, we will see the DA doing likewise.They recently hired a crowd of Blacks to deliver 351 complaints of farmers at the HRC because the aggrieved farmers were just too busy oppressing farmworkers.This they do on land dispossesed centuries ago.’ELISONDO, LIYA JIKA-JIKA’ meaning the wheel turns.
Geez Phemelo – do you just go from blog to blog criticizing the content – do you ever say anything constructive? Why don’t you start your own blog and then you can blog about anything that interests you? Just asking?
Phemelo, you certainly cannot lambast the DA as rightwing & opposed to transformation, when the actions of the ANCYL and many ‘deployed cadres’ fly in the face of correcting any wrongs of the past. The current breed of ‘youth leaders’ is shameful, if not totally out of their depth.