By calling on City Press and the Goodman Gallery to respectively remove the painting from their website and exhibition, the ruling party had expunged Section 16 (1) and (2) from the Constitution, he said.

"Specifically the "freedom of the press and other media" provided for in 16(1)(a) and "freedom of artistic creativity" articulated in 16(1)(c) became casualties."

Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande and the secretary general of the African National Congress secretary-general Gwede Mantashe personally agitated for the boycott of City Press, said Lekota.

"Now the editor of the City Press, anxious about her personal safety and that of her journalists, apologised for exercising her constitutionally enshrined right and removed the artistic work from the website of the newspaper."

Lekota, president of the Congress of the People, said the owner of the Goodman Gallery had "been dragged before TV sets to issue an apology under military-like supervision".

"When the ruling party, ie the government, frog-marches a citizen in this way, as [Minister of Arts and Culture Paul] Mashatile did, and threatens to unleash mass force on society, the Constitution is thrown out of the window."