Huisgenoot, You and Drum magazines will publish an open letter which was to form part of First National Bank’s (FNB) canned anti-crime campaign in its latest issue, the magazines said on Thursday.
FNB snatched headlines this week after it cancelled a multimillion-rand anti-crime advertising initiative, designed to urge President Thabo Mbeki to make crime his top priority, after a meeting with government and business last Friday.
”It seems it was the personal nature of the campaign — in the form of an open letter to President Mbeki — that caused offence,” said the magazines in a statement.
Editor Esmare Weideman said publishing the FNB letter as well as the magazine’s own open letter to Mbeki on crime, was ”not a campaign against President Mbeki or the government”.
”But no one has the right to stop ordinary South Africans from voicing their fears and frustrations about crime — or any other issue, for that matter. We are proud to live in a democratic country in which freedom of speech is entrenched in the Constitution,” she said.
”All we ask is that the government acknowledge our fears and frustrations — and give us a sense that they are fighting this scourge with all their might.”
The letters would appear in the February 15 edition of all three magazines. – Sapa