Current affairs TV programme Special Assignment has been rapped over the knuckles for defaming an international church by associating it with druglords and other criminals.
The Broadcasting Complaints Commission has ordered the SABC3, which airs the weekly programme, to play a five-minute correction at the end of one of its programmes before the end of next month.
The troublesome episode, aired in May, was titled Praise the Drug Lordand claimed that certain pastors were using their position to hide their involvement in drug dealing and money-laundering.
During the programme, the name, and images of the premises and symbol, of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God were shown.
The church has about 100000 members in South Africa,
The church was not named in the programme, other than in graphic inserts.
"The visuals implied complicity in crime, and the producers should either have excluded the material or obtained a response from the church," the commission held. SABC spokesman, Kaizer Kganyago said the broadcaster would comply.
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