We call on President to release State Security report!

26 February 2019

The Right2Know Campaign calls on President Ramaphosa to make good on his promise to release the report on dysfunction and abuses at the State Security Agency. This comes eight months after he set up a ‘High-Level Panel’ to investigate the Agency, and two weeks after he promised to take ‘urgent steps’ based on its findings.

On 1 February 2019, R2K made a request for this report, using the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA); in terms of PAIA, the Presidency must respond to the request within 30 days. This moment demands transparency!

The growing concerns of spying abuses, politicisation and corruption in the State Security Agency and the police’s Crime Intelligence Division are matters that affect the people of South Africa first and foremost. Therefore, the public deserves to see the contents of the report and have its voice heard in shaping the next steps.

The years of impunity in South Africa’s intelligence structures have come to a head. R2K and other organisations made a range of complaints to the Inspector-General of Intelligence about alleged monitoring and targeting of civil society organisations and journalists by government spies. These complaints have sat for years without being finalised.

Meanwhile, the High Court has scheduled hearings in June 2019 for amaBhungane’s constitutional challenge to the RICA surveillance law, brought about after the State Security Agency was caught monitoring the private phone calls of investigative journalists.

This time of secrecy, impunity, and abuse of power must end! We call on the President to honour our PAIA request and release the report by 3 March 2019.

Issued by Busi Mtabane, Communicator, R2K, 26 February 2019