SABC ‘censorship’ policy officially outlawed
THE SABC must revert to its 2004 editorial policy, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) has ruled. Icasa’s council has officially ratified a recommendation made by its complaints and compliance committee after a hearing in December last year.
The SOS Coalition and Media Monitoring Africa had brought the complaint against the SABC’s revised editorial policy of 2015, adopted in January 2016, because of the broadcaster’s decision that it would no longer show footage of the violent protests sweeping the country. The SABC is obliged to review its editorial policy every five years. The 2016 revision effectively, says SOS, allowed former SABC chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng to make editorial decisions in newsrooms. The revisions led to the new editorial guidelines being referred to as a “censorship policy”.
Icasa’s ruling states that the SABC’s policy falls foul of section 6 (6) of the Broadcasting Act No 4 of 1999 which compels the broadcaster to engage with the public about editorial changes and then publish the proposed revisions for public comment. “We did engage with the public. In 2014, 2015 we did a roadshow across the country,” said SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago.
At the time, the SABC said they met with 30 organisations and held 17 public hearings. “The only thing we didn’t do is publish the proposed changes. This will be a matter that the interim board will have to deal with when their term starts. Perhaps all they will want to do is publish the changes, we will see.” — AP CAPE TOWN – Outgoing chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is set to officially handover to the incoming chair Faki Mahamat on March 14 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Mahamat was elected by AU member states during the 28th AU summit of heads of state and government in January.
Reports indicated that he received 28 votes in the final round of voting, while Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Mohamad got 24 heads of state behind her. On Thursday, the AU said that the official handover ceremony would take place at 15:00 in the Nelson Mandela Hall at the AU headquarters.
Meanwhile, Dlamini-Zuma has slammed US President Donald Trump for the second time. This time she said his travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries could herald “turbulent times” for Africa.
In her last opening address to the African Union’s heads of state summit on Monday, Dlamini-Zuma told leaders: “We are entering very turbulent times.”
“The very country to which many of our people were taken as slaves during the transatlantic slave trade has now decided to ban refugees from some of our countries. What do we do about this? Indeed, this is one of the greatest challenges to our unity and solidarity,” she said.
Libya, Somalia and Sudan are the African countries affected by the ban. Dlamini-Zuma last Tuesday also expressed concern about Trump’s presidency, saying it could affect the global advances made in the fight for gender equality as well as combatting climate change. — AFP