Help us crowd-source a list of National Key Points
There are at least 182 National Key Points in South Africa, but nobody knows what they are.
YOU can help us build a partial list, though. If you have any knowledge of a building that has been identified as a National Key Point, please submit the information below. We are looking for information that is as specific and accurate as possible, with as much verifiable evidence as you can provide! (Also see our note below, “How can I identify a National Key Point?”)
First, please check the list that that has been compiled thus far to avoid double-entries:
Please circulate widely – help draw together a public list of National Key Points!
Note 1: Why do we need a list of National Key Points?
National Key Points are placed deemed to be so vital to national security (in terms of the apartheid-era National Key Points Act) that it is justifiable to restrict citizens’ rights to access information about these places, and prohibit the right to assemble or protest there. (Read more about how the National Key Points Act restricts the public’s right to know here.)
We need to have a list of National Key Points, because the Act could apply to just about any building or site, not just sensitive military bases – airports, petro-chemical refineries, public-broadcasting stations and even the president’s private residence are just a few of the places known to be National Key Points. Yet because the public doesn’t know conclusively which buildings are National Key Points, you could be breaking the law without even knowing it, by staging a protest at a National Key Point or by merely photographing it.
The public clearly has a right to know how this draconian law is being implemented – and it would not undermine national security if we did.
Note 2: How can I identify a National Key Point?
Even though SAPS has refused R2K’s request for a public list of National Key Points, many National Key Points are easily identified. For example, certain SABC stations have a sign at the entrance announcing that the site is a National Key Point (see above). Other institutions list their National Key Point status in annual reports or on their website. Other buildings only come to be known as National Key Points when authorities refuse to allow a protest there – this happened at the National Energy Regulator (NERSA) earlier this year.
If you suspect a building or institution has been declared a National Key Point, you can try simply searching in Google for “[building/institution]” AND “National Key Point” (keep the ” ” marks) and trawl through the results.
Writing in the Mail&Guardian, the journalist Phillip De Wet highlights some of the means by which National Key Points may be identified – and in doing so, identifies several National Key Points which should be added to this database.
According the letter in which the Ministry of Police refused to release a list of National Key Points (download here), places or areas which are National Key Points may include places:
(1) Banks;
(2) Munitions Industries;
(3) Petro Chemical Industries;
(4) Water Supply;
(5) Electricity;
(6) Communications;
(7) Transport Air;
(8) Government Institutions;
(9) Data Processing;
(10) Research; or
(11) Technology Information Systems
