President Jacob Zuma. Photo: Etienne Creux President Jacob Zuma. Photo: Etienne Creux
Opposition to the Protection of State Information Bill is shifting from the pavements to the digital arena and jumping right into President Jacob Zuma’s e-mail inbox.
Afrikaner rights organisation AfriForum has set up an online petition which allows citizens to flood Zuma’s inbox with protests.
The organisation has also set up a website – www.thebillstopshere.co.za – in a bid to encourage South Africans to get involved in “the battle for freedom of information”.
The message to Zuma says: “Mr President. The bill stops here! I, the undersigned South African citizen, would hereby like to state my concern over the so-called ‘Protection of State Information Bill’. I am of the opinion that the bill in its current form will be detrimental to accountability and effective government in South Africa; that it will have a negative impact on the fight against corruption; and that it will severely curtail the role of the media as watchdogs… I hereby request that you prevent this bill from becoming a law by refraining from signing it.”
AfriForum deputy chief executive Ernst Roets said on Tuesday that “the major battle is only starting now”, and citizens needed to make their voices heard.
The bill has been opposed in a campaign by civil society umbrella organisation the Right2Know campaign, as well as trade union federation Cosatu, among others.
The AfriForum website was launched Tuesday afternoon.
Within a few hours, more than 1 000 e-mails had been lodged. The campaign was also picking up momentum on social networking sites, with the e-mail Zuma facility attracting about 10 hits a minute.
Roets said the e-mails would be sent as a petition to Zuma and his personal assistant’s e-mail addresses.
Zuma’s spokesman, Mac Maharaj, said he was not aware of the e-mail and online campaign but it was a free country.
“People can do what they want. Whether the president agrees or not, he will be open to it. People are free to express themselves, there’s no impediment in the way,” Maharaj said.
Petitioners have to fill in their details on the website in order to take part in the protest, which AfriForum intends to use as part of legal action in the event that the bill is passed.
“Even if this means that we have to take this matter to the UN, we will not rest until we have succeeded in putting an end to this legislation,” Roets said.
The ANC last week used its majority in the National Assembly to pass the bill. Opposition parties united in rejecting the bill.
The bill has been widely condemned as an infringement on the freedom South Africans fought to attain.
It still has to make its way through the National Council of Provinces – where it may undergo further amendments by a multiparty ad-hoc committee. It will then go to Zuma for him to sign into law.
But opposition parties and Cosatu, among others, have vowed to challenge it in the Constitutional Court should he do so without changes having been made, particularly the introduction of a public interest defence to protect those who disclose or publish classified information in the belief it is in the interests of society.
Roets said it appeared that most ANC MPs had “simply ignored the public’s appeals in this regard”.
“As soon as the president adds his signature to this document, it will become the most devastating piece of legislation of the last 20 years. Should it be called for to flood the president’s e-mail address with complaints by members of the public, we will do so with the greatest of pleasure,” Roets said. - Political Bureau