Statement: R2K Gauteng Protest to reject the Film and Publications Board’s Online Regulations and STOP Internet censorship
On Wednesday, 29 April 2015 the Right2Know Campaign Gauteng will be protesting outside the Film & Publications Board offices at 420 Witch Hazel Avenue, ECO Park in Centurion from 11:00AM – 13:00PM.
The Right2Know Campaign calls on the public to reject the Film and Publications Board’s (FPB) proposals to censor the internet in South Africa. The FPB wants broadly defined powers to police everything published on the Internet – including blogs, personal websites and Facebook pages, which amounts to censorship and is a violation of freedom of expression.
The Right2Know Campaign demands that the Film and Publications Board scrap the Draft Online Regulation Policy document gazetted on Wednesday, 4 March 2015. The FPB must desist from any attempt to exercise pre-publication censorship of Internet content!
The Right2Know Campaign condemns this latest attempt to broaden the power of authorities to censor and restrict publishable content — the sort of action characteristic of an increasingly overbearing, paranoid and insecure state. The FPB’s draft online regulations smack of unnecessary censorship, are unconstitutional and must be scrapped.
We invite the public and the media to join us.
We also call on South Africans to sign the petition to scrap the FPB’s draft regulations here.
See the Right2Know Campaign’s full statement and response to the FPB’s draft online regulations here.
See also the Right2Know Campaign’s position paper on media freedom and diversity, and the right to communicate.
#HandsOffOurInternet
