A number of former South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) board members and senior executives have called for the appointment of a task team to investigate the malaise at the corporation and allow all employees to give evidence without fear of victimisation. The open letter from comes as the Right2Know campaign and the Save our SABC Coalition meet SABC chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng later on Monday over suspended journalists.The group met Motsoeneng on Friday during a picket by unions‚ activists and journalists against censorship and the suspension of three journalists two weeks ago outside the public broadcaster’s offices in Johannesburg. The letter was written by former deputy board chairperson Brigalia Bam; University of Johannesburg vice-chancellor and former board member Professor Njabulo S Ndebele; former editor-in-chief SABC TV News Joe Thloloe; former board member and editor-in chief SABC TV News Allister Sparks; former deputy chief executive officer Govin Reddy; former deputy chief executive SABC News Mathatha Tsedu; and former chief executive SABC News Barney Mthombothi.In the letter‚ they said censorship had no place at the SABC. “It is alien to and in violation of the noble principle of freedom of information and/or freedom of speech as enshrined in our constitution.”The former board members and executives said the state of fear under which SABC employees were working was not conducive to good journalism or programming.“It has to cease forthwith. The individuals or management found responsible for the censorship and victimisation of employees should be disciplined and removed from the organization.” The former board members and executives were intimately involved in the transformation of the corporation from an apartheid state broadcaster to a true public broadcaster.“As public broadcaster the corporation was transformed to reflect the solemn commitment of the new South Africa to an ethos of openness‚ fairness‚ independence both in its programming and the manner in which it was governed.”They said these values were central to the character of South Africa’s new democracy that was being shaped. “The enforcement of news censorship and the summary dismissal of journalists who objected to such an instruction is a gross violation of those principles.”They said such actions‚ together with distortions in the balance of news reporting that had been evident to them for some time‚ had reached a point that amounted to an abandonment by the SABC of its mandate to be a fair and honest reflector of events in our society.They called upon the SABC to serve without fear or favour and to be a force for good.They said that given the divisions in our country and the high rate of illiteracy‚ the SABC had a responsibility not only to help arm our people with skills‚ but also to educate them about their civic responsibilities. - TMG Digital..