Right2Know to picket against Secrecy Bill
JOHANNESBURG – Activist group the Right2Know campaign said it will hold silent pickets outside the ANC headquarters in Johannesburg and Parliament in opposition to the approval of the so-called secrecy bill on Thursday.
The organisation said it’s not too late for the ruling party to abandon its launch of the controversial Protection of State Information Bill.
The National Assembly is on Thursday expected to pass the final draft of the controversial Protection of Information Bill leaving it a signature away from becoming legislation.
Right2Know said by going ahead with passing the bill the ANC will be turning its back on what it spent decades fighting for.
The bill has been changed drastically o-ver the past three years.
Right2Know’s Nkwame Cedile said by passing the bill in its current form the National Assembly would be betraying the country’s democracy.
“The Right2Know members in Johannesburg will picket outside Luthuli House and remind them that the fight was against secrecy. In the Western Cape, we are going to bring in our members to fill up a hall in Parliament and observe this sad day in our history.”
The controversial bill was passed by the National Assembly in November 2011.
Opposition parties and the Right2Know have been protesting the bill for the past few years.
They believe it will allow corruption to flourish as it aims to regulate the classification, protection and dissemination of state information, weighing state interests up against transparency and freedom of expression.
Meanwhile, the ANC has dismissed the criticism of the bill saying it is necessary.
This article was written by Theo Nkonki and appeared on Eyewitness News on 25 April 2013.
