Posts Tagged ‘South Africa’
January 20th, 2012
Date: 14 March
Time: 7:30pm
Venue: Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX
Tickets: £15, £12 – book here
In the first of a series of events between Index on Censorship and the Southbank Centre, South African novelist Nadine Gordimer will be speaking at the centre’s Literature and Spoken Word Festival on 14 March.
The 88-year-old writer, renowned for her activism, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. She published her first novel in 1953, and has since gone on to publish short stories, plays and criticism in over 40 books, including The Conservationist, which won the Booker Prize in 1974. Gordimer’s latest novel, published to coincide with the event, is No Time Like the Present.
The festival will run from January to March. Tickets can be booked online here.
November 24th, 2011
The controversial Protection of State Information Bill reveals a an authoritarian streak that has always been present in the ANC, says Salil Tripathi
(more…)
September 13th, 2011
Court verdict comes as the populist politician Julius Malema faces internal disciplinary charges that could see him kicked out of the ANC. Louise Gray reports
(more…)
September 12th, 2011
A
South African court has today found
Julius Malema, leader of the youth brigade of the country’s ruling African National Congress (ANC),
guilty of hate speech. He was ordered to pay costs for singing an apartheid-era song that advocated the killing of white farmers. The civil case was brought against Malema by the Afrikaner civil rights group, Afriforum, who claimed white farmers felt vulnerable due to the song’s lyrics, which translate to “
shoot the white farmer“.
December 14th, 2010
South African president,
Jacob Zuma has filed a $440,000 defamation lawsuit over a cartoon depicting him as a
rapist of the justice system. The cartoon, published in 2008 by South Africa’s Sunday Times, depicts Zuma pulling his trousers down and about to rape a woman symbolising the justice system, aided by allies. One of Zuma’s allies depicted in the cartoon, filed a complaint about the cartoon before South Africa’s Human Rights Commission in 2008, however the commission concluded that the cartoon did not violate Zuma’s constitutional right to dignity or constitute hate speech.
August 6th, 2010
The ruling African National Congress (ANC) is
proposing a law which would entitle the South African government to prevent journalists investigating or publishing anything deemed to be in the national interest. The law would introduce a Media tribunal, where the government would effectively judge what the media could publish. Another section would force journalists to reveal confidential sources. Critics claim p
ress freedom is already under threat in South Africa; recently journalist Mzilikazi wa Afrika was arrested just days after reporting on a large property deal undertaken by the National Police Commissioner Bheki Cele. Cole had vocally attacked wa Afrika over the article.
June 2nd, 2010
Following criticism from Muslim groups, the
Mail & Guardian newspaper has apologised for publishing a satirical cartoon depicting the prophet Mohammed, and have agreed to refrain from publishing images of him in the future.. The cartoon, by resident illustrator Zapiro, sparked fierce debate and anger when it was published as part of the Facebook-organised Draw Mohammed Day on May 20. The newspaper’s apology comes after a meeting between editorial staff and the United Muslim Forum of South Africa.
March 19th, 2010
A prominent South African newspaper has accused the African National Congress Youth League of using
intimidation and fear to silence journalists. An editorial in the Business Day claimed that the youth wing of South Africa’s governing party have made “blatant attempts” to limit freedom of expression. Nineteen political correspondents have written an o
pen letter of complaint after youth league spokesman Floyd Shivambu threatened several reporters when attempting to ‘leak’ a dossier. The National Editors Forum has also urged president Jacob Zuma to
rein in the organisation from making personal attacks on individual media workers.
