Free speech in South Africa
Via SW Radio Africa and pasted here in full:
There was drama in Musina on Wednesday when armed South African police, accompanied by 9 soldiers in a troop carrier, swooped on 2 advertising workers erecting a billboard targeting Zimbabweans living in South Africa. The massive billboard read, ‘We know why you are in South Africa: Life in Zimbabwe is Murder; But please go back to vote in March. We can all be free.’
The poster was originally put up a month ago but within two days had been scraped off, in what locals say was a job done in the middle of the night. Initially it was thought operatives from Zimbabwe’s state security agency had crossed the border and clandestinely removed the paper on the board.
Washington Times correspondent Geoff Hill happened to be in Musina Wednesday and witnessed the arrest of the employees from Red Dot Media, involved in the placement of the poster. He says the workers were about to put up a new version of the same advert when the police and soldiers arrived at lunchtime and ordered them off the site. They were handcuffed and carted off to Musina Police Station in what Hill described as a heavy handed manner.
It’s not clear why the authorities are blocking the placement of the billboard or if they were behind its destruction a month ago? What is known however is that the site is a council accredited area which has previously hosted adverts from the likes of fast food chain KFC and soft drink manufacturer Coca Cola. Information received seems to indicate that police acted on a complaint from the ANC dominated Musina City Council.
Captain Makoki, the officer who supervised the arrests, refused to comment when Newsreel called him on his mobile. He insisted he could only speak to journalists face to face and not on the phone. Geoff Hill however told Newsreel the police were stonewalling on confirming the arrest of the Red Dot employees. Only when they became aware that a journalist had witnessed everything and was in possession of photographic evidence did they make a u-turn and confirm the incident.
Red Dot Media boss Will Basson confirmed the incident and spent the day trying to find out the reasons for the police arresting their workers. The South African media was abuzz with news of the incident. One radio station coined the headline ‘Armed police and soldiers swoop on 2 poster boys armed with glue.’ Meanwhile Geoff Hill confirmed the release of the employees at 16:45 (SA time). They were not charged.
October 16th, 2007 05:18
Cathy and I are year 11 students in Australia. For geography, we have to do a research assignment about an African country - we chose Zimbabwe.
We were like, “Yay! This will be fun! I mean - Africa; safaris and all!”
Turns out Africa isn’t like that at all. Of course we had heard about AIDS and HIV and ra ra ra - it didn’t apply to us - we simply didn’t care really. . . until now.
This website has really opened our eyes. It’s scary to think that we live in a globalized world, and yet we didn’t know about this problem in Zambawe until we had to look for it!!!!
To all the people who submit all these updates, thank you - we’re definately going to - wait. We can’t do anything. But we will try to spread word. EACH ONE, TELL ONE.
Thanks, and good luck.
Jadyn and Cathy
Australia
March 3rd, 2008 04:14
Watch Mugabe after elections - if he loses. He’ll admit irregularities in the vote casting due to unpreparedness of the electoral commision - this being part of the strategy - and cite the climate of intimidation and violence (albeit caused by his security machine). The results will be declared null and void, giving him a breathing space to rethink, remobilize and have a determination on just how much the vote was in or out of his favour. After all, he will know the ‘error factor’. The show is not over when the fat lady sings - it depends on how many encores there are.