South Africa

2015

  

CPJ urges South Africa to revise cybercrime bill that limits press freedom

New York, December 10, 2015–The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the South African government to revise provisions in the proposed Cybercrimes and Cybersecurity Bill that would limit journalists’ ability to work. Under the bill, journalists and members of the public could be prosecuted for possessing or disclosing state information, reports said.

Read More ›

Journalist attacked after covering protest in South Africa

Luvuyo Mehlwana, a reporter for the Daily Sun, one of the highest-circulated daily newspapers in South Africa, told CPJ he was kicked and beaten after covering a protest in the Northern Areas of the coastal city of Port Elizabeth on July 27, 2015.

Read More ›

Cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhauqe, better known as Zunar, poses in prison clothes with plastic handcuffs at a February 2, 2015, event launching a book in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. (AP)

Drawing the line: Cartoonists under threat

On January 7, two gunmen burst into the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing eight journalists and bringing into focus the risks cartoonists face. But with the ability of their work to transcend borders and languages, and to simplify complex political situations, the threats faced by cartoonists around the world—who are being imprisoned,…

Read More ›

A woman from the Right2Know campaign protests with her child against the State Information Bill, which would enable the prosecution of whistleblowers, public advocates, and journalists who reveal corruption, in Cape Town on April 25, 2013. (AP/Schalk van Zuydam)

Outdated secrecy laws stifle the press in South Africa

Nelson Mandela regularly harangued the media once he’d been freed after 27 years of imprisonment by South Africa’s apartheid government. He would call individual journalists when he liked or disliked something they had written or when he wanted to advance a political lobby.

Read More ›

The rubble of a school bombed by the Sudanese government in 2012. To set up a news agency to cover the conflict, humanitarian worker Ryan Boyette used crowdfunding. (AP/Ryan Boyette)

Journalists overcome obstacles through crowdfunding and determination

During South Africa’s Boer War, at the turn of the 20th century, a determined news organization relocated reporters, copy editors, and printing presses to the front line to ensure accurate reporting. In the Warsaw Ghetto, during World War II, a literal underground press, established to counter Nazi propaganda, required the nightly movement of cumbersome printing…

Read More ›

These South African plainclothes police ordered the photojournalist to delete their picture. (Jan Gerber/Media24)

South African police repeatedly force journalists to delete photos

South Africa is synonymous with crime in the eyes of many–as evidenced by the recent mugging of a TV crew live on camera–but for the press, a more sinister threat to freedom lies in the growing number of cases where it is the police, in flagrant denial of their orders, who intimidate and threaten journalists,…

Read More ›

After Charlie Hebdo attack, vigils, protests and publishing bans

Protests against the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo were held in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Middle East and parts of Africa over the weekend, as crowds demonstrated against the magazine’s portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad, according to news reports.

Read More ›

2015