Public broadcaster taken to high court
OUTCRY OVER BANS, CENSORSHIP
PRESSURE continued to mount on the SABC yesterday to reinstate suspended journalists and to drop its censorship policy
The Helen Suzman Foundation (HSF) has now launched an urgent application at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria against the SABC, its board of directors, its controversial chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng and Communications Minister Faith Muthambi.
Former SABC bosses Dr Brigalia Bam and Professor Njabulo Ndebele, former SABC TV news editor-in-chief Joe Thloloe and former deputy chief executive officer Govin Reddy have also written a letter to President Jacob Zuma about their unhappiness over censorship and working conditions at the public broadcaster.
The HSF seeks the court to look into suspending the implementation of the SABC’s policy and practice not to cover violent protests as well as relief preventing the SABC from adopting or implementing any censorship policy which would be contrary to the mandate of the public broadcaster.
The HSF said yesterday that as the public broadcaster, the SABC is obliged to cover, comprehensively, events of national and public importance, including political protests and news which may portray the Presidency or any political party in a negative light. The foundation trusts that in an open and democratic society, which includes the protection of the rights to freedom of expression, a free press and the ability, freely, to receive information.
“Censorship, by the public broadcaster no less, strikes at the very heart of these rights, undermines and erodes our constitutional democracy.”
The former SABC bosses reminded Zuma and Muthambi that they were unhappy with the state of the broadcaster as they were involved in transforming the corporation from an apartheid state broadcaster to a “true public broadcaster”. Yesterday, another journalist Lukhanyo Calata was the latest to be suspended for speaking out against the censorship, bringing to seven the number of those suspended.
He is joining Thandeka Gqubule, Foeta Krige, Suna Venter, Busisiwe Ntuli, Krivani Pillay and Jacques Steenkamp.
They are already going through disciplinary hearings over bringing the organisation into disrepute.
Meanwhile, Motsoeneng, who had agreed to a follow-up meeting with civil societies and journalists who protested outside the SABC offices in Johannesburg on Friday, failed to honour the meeting yesterday.