The SA National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) has condemned KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi for calling on parliament to launch a counterintelligence investigation into the SA media.
This followed Mkhwanazi’s appearance before the parliamentary ad hoc committee on Tuesday night, where he deviated from his prepared witness statement and urged both the committee and the joint standing committee on intelligence to instruct the state security apparatus to investigate the country’s news media.
Again, on Wednesday afternoon, Mkhwanazi doubled down on his stance and called for the imprisonment of journalists and “heavy penalties” for journalists who erred in their reporting
“They must sit in Pollsmoor [prison] for a while,” Mkhwanazi added.
Sanef executive director Reggy Moalusi said the threats against journalists and their sources, and any moves to investigate the media, were intimidation tactics to protect the corrupt and prevent legitimate journalistic work in the public interest.
He said that that would represent a significant setback for media freedom in SA, reminiscent of the oppressive tactics employed by the apartheid state to suppress truthful journalism.
“Minister Cachalia and commissioner Masemola must condemn any attempts to undermine the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of our media, to target whistle-blowers and to hide alleged corruption from the public,” Moalusi said.
“This is a chilling attack on the constitutional right to a free press. We hope this will be publicly condemned by national police commissioner Gen Fannie Masemola and police minister Firoz Cachalia as unwarranted and an unsubstantiated overreach of his powers,” he said.
Moalusi believed the context surrounding “this unprecedented attack” hinged on media reports on the activities of crime intelligence.
“More specifically, reports on the findings of a report by the inspector-general of intelligence (IGI), which recommends that Masemola should face criminal and disciplinary charges for approving the purchase of properties worth a collective R120m by crime intelligence.
“It also recommended charges against the suspended head of crime intelligence, Maj-Gen Dumisani Khumalo, and suspended CFO of crime intelligence, Maj-Gen Philani Lushaba, for gross financial misconduct,” Moalusi said.
Mkhwanazi told the ad hoc committee that specific journalists should be targeted, including staff from the Sunday Times, City Press and News24.
Mkhwanazi claimed the IGI report that News24 had reported on was classified and maintained that the secrecy of crime intelligence’s operations was sacrosanct. He questioned whether crime intelligence should be interrogated in open sessions of parliamentary committees and said that even if there were alleged corrupt activities by crime intelligence, they needed to be investigated in secret because disclosing their activities would destabilise the country.
“Over the past two decades, journalists have been at the forefront of exposing the abuse of the so-called secret slush fund in crime intelligence. The context here is also that journalists, whistle-blowers, investigators, lawyers, accountants, auditors, liquidators and activists are either harassed or assassinated for uncovering nefarious activities.
“Minister Cachalia and commissioner Masemola must condemn any attempts to undermine the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of our media, to target whistle-blowers and to hide alleged corruption from the public.”
Moalusi said failure to do so would herald the destruction of any semblance of democratic process in the country, which would become a country where unchecked power could no longer be interrogated.
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