Minister of Home Affairs Stoffel Botha will need no more than a signature to close the Weekly Mail at any time he chooses, from next Wednesday on. He may choose to act immediately, or to string out the waiting period … for days, even months. The letter the minister delivered to the paper last week was the last step in a complex system of warnings under Emergency regulations. All that is left for him to do now is to consider representations from the newspaper – due on October 26 – and make his decision on its future. He need consult no one. He has to apply his mind to the matter, read the representations, and then publish his decision in a Government Gazette.
His choice will be to suspend the newspaper for up to three months, impose a censor on it, or allow it to continue indefinitely under threat. There is every sign that the minister is serious about his latest warning to the three-year-old publication. Diplomatic and other sources indicate he intends to act soon against the Weekly Mail. The question this raises is: can Stoffel Botha be dissuaded? When he last threatened the newspaper, in April/May, there was large-scale and high-level reaction, locally and internationally. Botha faced appeals not to act against the publication from top business leaders, a number of governments, including South Africa's major trading partners, and thousands of ordinary citizens who protested in some way. After meeting the newspaper's editors, Botha declined to carry out his threat and the matter lay in abeyance – until last week, when he suddenly missued another warning.
The Weekly Mail is now drawing up further representations, to be served on him before the Wednesday deadline. The newspaper is also considering court action. And protests are pouring in. The powerful American Society of News- paper Editors, the World Press Freedom Committee and the Committee for the Protection of Journalists are some of the organisations that have called on the government not to act against the Weekly Mail. There have also been a number of major initiatives from diplomats and members of the business community. The Save the Press Committee in Johannesburg has also called on Botha to reconsider and the Association of Democratic Journalists held a picket in central Johannesburg.
Weekly Mail would be the third newspaper to face a suspension imposed by Botha. Earlier this year, both South and New Nation were closed for short spells. Both have since returned to the street. Weekly Mail has faced all sorts of action – seizures, threats of prosecution, petty harassment of its drivers, bomb threats aimed at its printers – but it has never come so close to actual closure.
Whatever happens, we’ll be back
A three-month suspension will not be the end of the Weekly Mail. While the paper does not have a large financial base, and will struggle to survive through the period, contingency plans have been made. A key factor will be whether the journalists, the readers, the subscribers and the advertisers can hold together during three months of silence.
- We intend to return. We will do all in our power to ensure that those who have subscribed will not lose their money.
- Various special offers have been made. If you buy a friend a Caroline Cullinan calendar you're also helping the Weekly Mail to come back.
It is illegal for the newspaper to publish a substitute or continuation of the Weekly MaiI. However, plans are being made for the staff to take up other forms of publishing – of both news and other material – during a period of suspension. Although these plans are not yet definite, one thing is clear: the newspaper and its staff are not going to disappear.
This raticle originally appeared in the Weekly Mail.
