Our view: June 10, 2013 – Secrecy Bill
Under the said Bill, politicians, government institutions and powerful men and women can decide at any given moment, to classify any piece of information that can cause trouble or embarrassment for them and their institutions.
Surely, this country is headed for the doldrums in as a far as receiving information most importantly, freedom of speech and expression if the Secrecy Bill is signed into law.
The problem here is that power has been bestowed on one man only, the Minister of Intelligence, who has the power to declare any information under national security. And it is through talking to him, as an institution, that you need certain information to be classified under national security and explaining well, if he understands you, he will grant it.
What does this mean to the ordinary men and women, sons and daughters? They will be deprived of information that would correct a lot of things whereby, local government , provincial and national can be exposed for wrong doing.
The media, in simple terms, is being gagged in all respects.
It is back to the olden days of draconian laws by the apartheid regime who were untouchable, so to speak, so is our so called democratic government, now gagging us and ridding society of the freedom of speech which is the epitome of a democratic society.
Methinks with the heaving prison penalties that go along with it, ranging from five years up to 25 years, it is a direct threat to the media not to touch any investigation for fear of serving a prison sentence.
If apartheid was brought down despite the death sentence, life sentence, long prison sentences, banishments and so on, why can’t we, exponents of the freedom of speech and expression risk our lives for that until we attain the freedom we all dearly fought for before 1994?
I think the government will have to fine-tune itself and build more prisons because us media practitioners will be headed there, sooner or later. I bet it will be our second home because we’ll keep on going back because we cannot do without investigating them for wrong-doings.
We cannot work without those vital documents which may be classified. And we cannot do our work without our sources, whom, under this Bill, we will have to reveal. Rather than do that, we’d rather serve a prison term.
If the government intends transforming us into their lap dogs, then they have another thing coming. Watch this space!
