CWU statement on the Mike Waters vs SABC issue
2018 December 31
Communication Workers Union (CWU) is taken aback by the reports in the media that Democratic Alliance (DA) MP Mike Waters says he’s laid criminal charges against the SABC and an individual shown on the broadcaster’s 24-hour news TV channel wearing a t-shirt with the words “Kill all white people”. Firstly CWU as a trade union movement is against all forms of racism and violence and we uphold and live by these principles.
At no stage we will defend any individual that perpetuate violence against any citizen of this country and outside our borders. We do not want to deal with the merits and demerits of the said allegations, however ours is to defend the freedom of media. In his (Mike Waters) statement invoked the Constitution, section 16(2). Section 16(1) allows for freedom of speech but section 16.2 does not allow for the incitement of violence.
We would first want to deal with the hypocrisy of a DA as a whole and Mike Waters in particular. In July 2016 ICASA made a ruling in declaring SABC censorship illegal and it was welcomed by DA and many other formations, this was after the SABC argued that it wont televised visuals of violence during public protest as they incite violence. In less than 3 years time, DA MP Mr. Waters is using the same argument in reverse and we therefore would like to refer him and his party to the ruling of ICASA taken on the 11 July 2016 which was upheld by the high court in Pretoria in the same month.
We believe that DA can go on with its intentions to lay criminal charges against individual if they think they've got a case on the t/short written "Kill all white people Supremacy" with a letter "people" scratched in our view it suggest that kill "not the (white) people" but (white) supremacy. If DA continues with this unwarranted attack on SABC using courts it would be an attack on freedom of media and a promotional of censorship. We therefore condemn the initiative by the DA and or its MP in this regard.
Statement issued by CWU General Secretary, Aubrey Tshabalala, 31 December 2018
