DA will fight horrific Censorship Act
3 March 2022
The DA rejects President Cyril Ramaphosa’s signing of the Films and Publications Amendment Act. Not only is this a dark day for our hard won freedom of speech, but due to problems with the Government Printing Works (GPW), South Africans did not know this Act had been proclaimed until the day it became law. The President’s surreptitious proclamation of the Act indicates that the ANC government hoped this horrific piece of legislation would go unnoticed.
The DA has asked the problems with the GPW be solved as a matter of urgency, and because our call was not adhered to, the Act has caught the country by surprise.
The DA is vehemently opposed to this Act, and it seemed that the ANC government conceded it has problematic aspects. In 2020, the then Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, committed in a parliamentary portfolio committee meeting to ensuring that the final version of so-called ‘internet censorship’ regulations will not infringe on the constitutional right to freedom of expression. Another empty ANC promise.
Our right to freedom of expression must be relentlessly shielded from the State’s perpetual undemocratic quest to suffocate and criminalise its citizens’ expressions. Trying to police and censor citizens, especially online, shows a government completely blinded by their obsession and out of touch with the reality of the situation.