Sanef takes action as journalists continue to come under fire

The South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) announced on Wednesday that progress was being made in its legal case in the Equality Court initiated to protect journalists against harassment and abuse.

In a statement, the forum said it had lodged a complaint in the Equality Court late last year against the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) following “a barrage of abusive and dangerous threats against journalists”. It said it approached the court “in defence of media freedom and seeking the protection of journalists”.

The court papers call for:

• The interdicting of the EFF leadership from intimidating, harassing, threatening, and assaulting journalists;
• Interdicting the EFF leadership from publishing personal information of journalists on public platforms or on social media or by other means;
• Interdicting the EFF leadership from expressly or tacitly endorsing the intimidation, harassment, threats, or assaults by supporters or followers, whether on public platforms or on social media or by other means;
• Directing the EFF to publicly denounce the harassment and abuse of journalists; and
• Finally, directing the EFF to publish an apology to the specific journalists listed as complainants in the court papers and directing the EFF to publicly acknowledge the constitutionally protected role played by journalists.

See here for the full set of papers – https://sanef.org.za/sanef-vs-eff-court-papers/

The forum said after initial delays with the case, it has been informed that Judge Hughes would be hearing the matter and that the following timeline has been agreed to:

• June 12: EFF to file their answering papers
• June 27: SANEF to file replying papers
• July 11: pre-trial meeting with Judge Hughes
• August 5, 6 and 7: Hearing of the matter

“Sanef sees progress as regards this case as critical given the ongoing harassment of journalists. In this regard, we note the most recent chilling case of harassment of investigative journalist Pauli van Wyk in the wake of her hard-hitting stories on the EFF and VBS Bank. We note a tweet by Julius Malema communicated to his more than 2.4m followers. He didn’t elaborate or name any individuals, but the timing pointed to a veiled threat. He called for his followers to ‘go for the kill’ and to ‘hit hard’.

“As Sanef, we believe that this court case will finally hold the EFF leadership to account in its sustained abuse of journalists – and thus its sustained abuse of our hard-won constitutional principles of freedom of expression, access to information and freedom of the media.”

(Compiled by Makhosandile Zulu)

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