Black Tuesday: the end of press freedom?

Page 1 of 1 [ 1 post ] 

Jono
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 10 Jul 2008
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,606
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa

23 Nov 2011, 6:29 am

In South Africa, they just passed the Protection of Information Bill yesterday. :cry: While this bill was initially just designed to protect state secrets, it now has language in it that could allow government to classify absolutely anything as secret, including documents that indicate corruption. If this law was around when the newspapers broke the story of the arms deal scandal, for instance, journalists could of gone to jail just for printing it. For those of you in the US, imagine if you ever had a law that could of put journalists in jail for reporting the Watergate scandal, that's the kind impact this bill could have here. Link:

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-11-22-black-tuesday-secrecy-bill-passed-by-parliament