Sanef call to ditch info bill

The South African National Editors Forum has written to MPs asking them to shelve the controversial secrecy bill until it has been redrafted.

Also yesterday, Professor Arnold van Zyl, acting rector of the University of Stellenbosch, urged in an open letter that the Protection of Information Bill should be withdrawn because it threatens academic freedom.

In his last public appearance and statement, former cabinet minister Kader Asmal, who died on Wednesday, also called for the bill to be scrapped.

Parliament voted this week to extend the life of the multiparty committee processing the Protection of Information Bill to September.

The committee is scheduled to resume work today and is expected soon to start discussing clauses that most directly affect the media.

The bill proposes a framework for the classification of state secrets and seeks to criminalise whistle-blowing based on leaked secrets.

Sanef welcomed concessions already included in the draft text, but said in the letter that many remaining aspects of the bill posed a threat to media freedom. It listed five particular concerns:

• The authority to classify information as secret is given to too many organisations;
• The power to classify should be "strictly limited to those organs of state that guard the national security of the Republic as a whole";
• The minimum penalties for the disclosure of secrets, including mandatory prison sentences, are too harsh;
• There is no provision for courts to condone leaking of secrets to reveal information that is in the public interest; and
• The bill would violate several provisions of the Constitution, including the guarantee of freedom of information.

"We editors and senior journalists of South Africa ... urge MPs to shelve the processing of the Protection of Information Bill until the overwhelming opposition voiced during public hearings is given proper weight in its redrafting and to ensure it is not passed into law without amendments to address these crucial threats to the constitutional guarantee of openness and the proper functioning of our democracy," Sanef said.

The department of state security, which is sponsoring the bill, welcomed the extension of the deadline for its finalisation.

"We reiterate the call for a sober deliberation and public debate on this bill which accurately reflects the totality of opinions and positions from all sectors, particularly the ANC and government," the department said, adding that many amendments had already been made as a result of discussions in parliament.

"To therefore call for this bill to be scrapped shows total disregard to those who have contributed to this process. It further seeks to undermine the work of parliament ... and this cannot be allowed," the department said.