By DAVID MACGREGOR
Port Alfred Bureau
Source: Daily Dispatch
PRESS freedom came under the spotlight yesterday when 30 Rhodes University students – some barefoot and others banging bongo drums – protested outside the Grahamstown Police Station.
Accusing police of using “heavy handed Hollywood-style policing” tactics to arrest Sunday Times journalist Mzilikazi wa Afrika and intimidate media colleagues, there were a few anxious moments when students were told the Makana Municipality had not given permission for them to protest.
The irony of veteran policeman Lieutenant-Colonel Monray Nel’s pleas for the protestors to limit their numbers to fewer than 15 – so that he would not be forced to arrest them for holding an “illegal gathering” without municipal permission – was not lost on the crowd.
Although there were clearly more than 15 protestors, the issue was hastily resolved when some students said they were marshals – or journalists and photographers.
Nel told the protestors that although the municipality had not banned the march, they appeared to be buying time by “keeping quiet” when it came to giving organisers permission to protest.
Claiming he was “worried that if the municipality sees 100 people at the police station” they would order him to arrest protestors, Nel advised organisers to limit numbers so that they could “get mileage from this” without ending up behind bars.
Rhodes honours student and protest convenor Aidan Prinsloo said: “Freedom of speech is threatened; we can’t keep it under wraps. If people do not make a noise, others will not respond.”
After an anxious 45 minutes news came through that municipal officials had finally given permission.
Calling State attempts to restrict the media a “direct attack on democracy”, protest marshal and law student Douglas de Jager said although South Africa had one of the most progressive constitutions in the world, without a free media it meant nothing.
Writer Erika Wertlen , who works at the National English Literature Museum, said recent murmurings to control media did not just affect newspapers, it also threatened the arts and other forms of free thinking.
She told protestors, who all signed a petition to end media oppression, that a “Facebook cause” called “people against censorship of arts and media in South Africa” had been formed to highlight the issue.
According to Wertlen, the Freedom of Xpression Institute (FXI) supported the cause and plans were afoot to lodge the issue with Amnesty International.
“It is very scary how many old apartheid laws are still on the statute books.”
The protest and petition was inspired by former student activist Paul Hjul, who sent an e-mail from his Jeffreys Bay home to Rhodes last week detailing a plan of action to protest threats to media freedom.
“The manner of making the arrest (of Wa Afrika) was not directed at embarrassing an errant journalist, but rather at intimidating the entire media establishment.”