Cape Town Press Club adds its voice to Right 2 Know Campaign
The following is a press release from the Cape Town Press Club
Cape Town Press Club adds its voice to Right 2 Know Campaign The Protection of Information Bill is an affront to freedom of speech, something that so many people fought and died for.
The Cape Town Press Club adds its voice to the unprecedented voices of opposition from the entire spectrum of our society to the Protection of Information Bill. We support the Right 2 Know campaign.
The Bill, as it stands currently, infringes on the Constitutional rights of every South African and will impact severely on investigate journalism. The Bill criminalizes freedom of speech.
Murray Hunter, the national convenor of the Right 2 Know campaign, addressed the club yesterday (Thursday, July 7, 2011).
We need far more constructive discussion on this proposed piece of legislation. In its current format the Protection of Information Bill should not be adopted. Even with the concessions recently announced – although not yet in written form – the legislation remains deleteriously problematic. These concessions did reduce the ambit of the bill from 1000 government agencies to those in the security cluster, but it remains a serious risk that these departments will have powers to declare matters secret even when in the public interest.
