Malema and ANCYL: The new Idi Amin
Sunday, March 28th, 2010 at 6:11 am
Onkgopotse JJ Tabane, Thoughtleader
All journalists who would in future dare criticise the ANCYL and its leaders, must make sure that they do not have skeletons in the cupboard lest they get investigated by the league. Anyone who doubted that we are descending onto a banana republic must have their doubts cleared up by this extraordinary development. With all the shenanigans at the ANC Youth League and all the systemic corruption of ANC deployees and politicians in all possible spheres of society driving the news room agenda of many newspapers, the poor imperfect journalists will have to scramble to find some new things to write about.Read more »
To say that this is an ultimate assault on the freedom of expression is an understatement. We do not need far fetched examples to know that this is how repression starts. The media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RWB) has reported recently that the freedom of the press on our continent is in a parlous state. It says in its recent report that: “The DRC continues to be one of those African countries where exercising the right to information can lead to prison, hospital and sometimes the cemetery”. It also dubbed Sierra Leone “one of the worst press-freedom violators” following the imprisonment a few years ago of leading journalist Paul Kamara for four years on trumped-up libel charges. It says of Zimbabwe — where you could be arrested for poking fun at the president — freedom of the press there “simply does not exist”. (This must sound familiar to the likes of Zapiro.)
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