DA will fight SABC's censorship in court

30 April 2014

The DA has received notice from the SABC's Head of Broadcast Compliance, Mr Fakir Hassen, that the SABC will not allow the DA's second Ayisafani election TV advert to air. The commercial can be viewed below)

This is censorship, pure and simple. There is absolutely no rational or legal basis on which to prevent this ad from airing. The SABC's intent is clear - they wish to seriously damage the DA's election campaign in this crucial final week of the election. We will not let this stand.

The DA will approach the Gauteng North High Court this afternoon for an urgent interdict compelling the SABC to air the DA's advert immediately. Political advertising regulations ordinarily require us to approach ICASA. We will do this simultaneously, as we cannot delay the airing of this ad for even 48 hours, the time it would take for ICASA to hear the matter.

The reason advanced by the SABC is spurious and cannot stand up to any reasonable scrutiny. Mr Hassen's written reason for not allowing the ad to air is that the opening line of the advert is false -- "since the ICASA ruling on Saturday the DA cannot claim that "They tried to stop us" as the ruling had already effectively stopped the ad by then. They also cannot say anthing (sic) like "this is what they did not want you to see or know," as it cannot show or refer to the same disallowed content."

This is a transparent attempt by the SABC to protect Jacob Zuma and the ANC from rising DA support in the last week of the election campaign. The ANC is nervous that voters will choose not to support it next Wednesday, after it has failed to deliver job-creating economic growth, and the scandals that have beset it in recent months.

The DA will fight this censorship. We have already briefed our lawyers this morning, and will begin legal proceedings to overturn this decision immediately.

Statement issued by DA leader, Helen Zille, April 30 2014

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