South Africa Archives - Page 6 of 27

Raymond Joseph: South Africa’s camera-shy police target journalists

06 Aug 15 | mobile, News and features, South Africa

Despite Standing Order 156 incidents of police harassment of journalists continues. (Photo: Jaxons / Shutterstock.com)

Raymond Joseph has joined Index as a columnist

Working as a reporter in the spiraling cauldron of violence in South Africa of 70s and 80s, I learned early on to be wary of the police, who would often harass, bully and even detain journalists for doing their job.

Often it happened when police, armed to the teeth, went into operational mode, firing teargas, baton rounds and even live ammunition to brutally break up protests.

While reporters were also targeted, it was photographers and cameramen who were really in the firing line. Toting cameras, they were easily visible. Their pictures or footage were regularly destroyed by police and their equipment damaged or confiscated.

As a young reporter, I became adept at stashing exposed rolls of film, slipped to me by photographer colleagues, down the front of my trousers to hide them from the police.

Anyone who worked as a journalist in those turbulent times has stories to tell of being pushed around and bullied by the police who saw the media, especially those working for the anti-apartheid era English language Press, as “the enemy”.

Fast forward two decades into post-apartheid South Africa and practically every working journalist also has a story of police harassment to tell, often arising from incidents when they were reporting or filming police officers. Many less serious incidents go unreported, accepted by journalists as part of the job.

This is happening despite the South African Police Service’s own Standing Order 156 that sets out how the police must behave towards the media. The language used is unequivocal and leaves no room for misunderstanding. It makes it clear that police cannot stop journalists from taking photos or filming, including photographing police officers. It also states that “under no circumstances” may media be “verbally or physically abused” and “under no circumstances whatsoever, may a member willfully damage the camera, film, recording or other equipment of a media representative.”

Yet despite high-level meetings between media and the police’s top brass, who say that such actions are not condoned, incidents continue to occur. The most recent meeting was in June this year between the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) and the Johannesburg Metro Police after a photographer and TV cameraman were roughed up when they filmed officers arresting a drunk driver.

Incidents are happening so regularly that the Right2Know Campaign has published a booklet and cards explaining their rights for journalists to give to police if they are interfered with while on the job.

But, problematically, Standing Order 156 only deals with media and makes no mention of civilians who film the police using mobile phones.
“One shortcoming that we discovered in putting this together is that there isn’t enough protection for bystanders with cell phones,” says R2K spokesman Murray Hunter. “Under the Constitution, everyone has the same right to freedom of expression – working journalists and ordinary people alike. It’s especially important since bystanders with cell phones are often sources for mainstream media.

“But the direct orders that we refer to in this advisory only instruct police not to interfere with old-school media workers. So bystanders may still find themselves in a situation where the Constitution recognises their right to freedom of expression, but a police officer on the ground doesn’t.”

An example of the important role now played by citizens in newsgathering is the video footage shot by a bystander on a mobile phone of police brutalising taxi driver Mido Macia for an alleged minor parking offence. Sent anonymously to the Daily Sun newspaper, it led to the dismissal of nine policemen, who are now on trial for the killing of Macia.

One beacon of hope is that Standing Order 156 is under review after SANEF complained to the police about repeated media harassment. R2K sees this as an opportunity to include protection of the rights of citizen reporters, as well as media professionals, says Hunter.

But that could take time and involve protracted negotiations. And even if it happens there is no guarantee that police will heed the force’s own rules, or that the harassment of journalists and others will end.

It seems that the more things change, the more they will stay the same.

This column was posted on 6 August 2015 at indexoncensorship.org

26 May: Zanele Muholi in conversation with Bidisha

21 May 15 | Events, mobile

South African photographer and human rights campaigner Zanele Muholi won the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Arts Award in 2013.

Writer, campaigner and broadcaster Bidisha joins her in London to discuss the power of art in activism and the importance of visibility and representation in combating prejudice and human rights abuse.

Zanele will also be discussing her Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2015 nominated work Faces and Phases which is currently on display at The Photographers’ Gallery, London (17 Apr – 7 Jun) and at the Brooklyn Museum, New York (1 May – 1 Nov)

WHEN: Tuesday 26th May 2015, 6.30pm
WHERE: London College of Fashion, London, W1G 0BJ
TICKETS: £12 with promo code PGMEMBER (normally £20) / available here

South Africa must support novelist Zainub Priya Dala

13 Apr 15 | Campaigns, mobile, South Africa, Statements

Zainub Priya Dala (9News / YouTube)

A South African novelist has been subjected to harassment and violently assaulted for expressing an opinion of Salmon Rushdie’s work. Zainub Priya Dala, a psychologist and a physiotherapist specialising in autism, recently published her first novel, What About Meera.

While speaking at a school literary event in March, Dala expressed admiration for Rushdie’s work. The following day she was threatened by three men in a parking lot. The assailants placed a knife to her throat and hit her in the face with a brick, calling her “Rushdie’s bitch.” The attack ended when a minibus entered the lot. Dala said she believes she would have been stabbed had the attack not been interrupted.

Dala reported that she has come under pressure from some of Durban’s religious leaders to renounce her statements on Rushdie and his work. She has been told to say the prayers and seek forgiveness.

Diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, Dala is currently being treated at a hospital, where she went reluctantly and where she is being held against her wishes. Index is pleased to hear that she has now been discharged from the facility.

Index calls on South Africa’s government to protect the right of individuals to freedom of expression guaranteed by the country’s constitution. Further, South Africa must provide protection for Dala.

“South Africa is a modern democracy that has publicly committed to upholding the values of free expression and the rights these values afford individuals,” said Index CEO Jodie Ginsberg. “It is incumbent on South Africa to show it believes and supports these principles by supporting Zainub Dala and by taking action against those who would silence her.”

In memory of Nadine Gordimer

14 Jul 14 | Africa, Magazine, News and features, South Africa

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Index on Censorship remembers Nadine Gordimer, who died today at 90. The South African author, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Booker Prize among many other honours, was a long-time Index supporter and patron. She wrote for Index on Censorship magazine a number of times, including in its first year. Gordimer was also involved in the anti-apartheid movement, and much of her work deals with issues of politics and race. Three of her books – Burger’s Daughter, A World of Strangers, The Late Bourgeois World – were banned by the apartheid regime.

Ursula Owen was editor of Index magazine in 1994, when South Africa held its first free election. An issue of the magazine celebrated the historic event with an article by Gordimer, among others.

Owen said: “I remember visiting her in the late 90s, together with Adewale Maya Pearce, when I was running Index. We sat in her garden in Johannesburg. She was attentive and full of energy, and talked with great passion about what was going on in post-apartheid South Africa. Later we went to supper with Helen Suzman – an extraordinary experience to spend time in the same room with these two remarkable women. Awesome, as my granddaughters would say.”

Jayne Whiffin, publisher of Index magazine, said: “I am very sad to hear of Nadine Gordimer’s passing today. Nobody growing up in South Africa in the 1980s and 1990s could be unfamiliar with her work, and her short story, Message in a Bottle has great personal significance for me as the first piece of writing I encountered of hers while at school in South Africa. Her writing was an exemplar of how fiction can tell the truth even under the most strenuous forms of oppression, and she will be sorely missed both in South Africa and around the world.”

In celebration of her remarkable life, Index has created a collection of Gordimer’s articles that appeared in the magazine. These are free to read until 14 September.

Apartheid and censorship [1972]

Standing in the queue [1994]

Act two: one year later [1995]

Rushdie revisited [2008]

This article was posted on July 14, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org

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