Two security guards at Gauteng finance minister Paul Mashatile’s Johannesburg home threatened Mail & Guardian photographer Lisa Skinner when she took pictures of the property.
Skinner this month visited the well-protected house in Kelvin, north of Johannesburg, to take pictures for a story the M&G is investigating and stopped her car in front of the property.
”I saw two guards in front of the house. They started screaming when I began to shoot and came running towards me,” she said.
Skinner drove off to change lenses and on her return also saw children at Mashatile’s gate. The guards saw her again and came over to the car.
”They said I can’t take pictures of their house and started hitting the car. I told them that I’m a journalist and that it’s my right to take pictures from the street. The one guy started to kick my car and hit the window with the back of his gun.”
One of the guards then jumped on to Skinner’s bonnet and started to hit the car and windscreen. ”He climbed on to my car and threatened to shoot me. At one stage he was pointing his pistol at me. I drove off.”
Later that night, a female police officer arrived at the house of the person on whose name Skinner’s car is registered and asked for her. The officer said it is illegal for journalists to take pictures of the houses of ”high-profile people” and that she was just ”checking up”.
Mashatile’s spokesperson, Percy Mthimkulu, said of the incident that the minister’s guards have a clear mandate to ”protect the life and limb of the MEC [provincial minister]”.
”On the day in question the guards spotted a suspicious-looking vehicle in the area close to the MEC’s private residence. Without asking for permission and without introducing herself, the occupant of the suspicious vehicle started taking pictures of the MEC’s house. Because of security considerations, the guards confronted the unknown occupant of the car to determine what was happening,” Mthimkulu says.
According to him, ”the guards were doing their job”.
Mthimkulu confirmed the matter is being looked into by the provincial security services.