The staff of South had to pull a special edition off the streets at the 11th hour this week when a banning order was slapped on the Cape-based newspaper. South, which is usually published on Thursday, attempted to beat an expected banning order by bringing out the paper's last edition on Monday, in the hope that Minister of Home Affairs Stoffel Botha would not bring down the axe until Wednesday.
According to editor Rashid Seria, the special edition was on the streets by midday. At 2.30pm South was banned. 'We received legal advice to withdraw our newspaper from the streets, which we did." They managed to sell only 20 percent of the print run.
Production of the newspaper has been totally prohibited according to a notice in the Government Gazette on Monday. The banning is effective until and including June 10, a day before the expiration of the current State of Emergency.
South staff intend keeping themselves busy in the next month by undertaking in-house training, helping Grassroots newspaper, and launching a news agency in conjunction with Press Trust, a Durban agency. Seria expressed concern over the possibility of the banning order being extended if the State of Emergency is renewed. "Beyond that we will fight with all our might. If we don't make it difficult for the minister now the future of the press will be bleak."
Organisations have come out in support of South, condemning the action of the minister. "Through Stoffel Botha's desperate and heavy-handed use of the censorship axe, the state has shown yet again, as the political crisis deepens, one of its first scapegoats is the truth," mid Bob Kernohan, president-elect of the Southern African Society of Journalists. He recalled on the minister to review the banning urgently "with a view to cancelling it".
In a statement the African National Congress condemned the banning and accused the government of being "completely intolerant of those voices of our people advocating fundamental democratic changes in our land". The Anti-Censorship Action Group (Acag) said the minister of home affairs can "stifle public expression through newspapers, but the fact of oppression end the resulting eager and frustration in people's lives remains". – Karen Evans and Thandeka Gqubule.
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail.
