The SABC pulled a documentary on circumcision hours before it was due to be aired in response to a complaint from a member of the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa who had not seen the programme.
The decision to stop the showing of the documentary was made unilaterally by SABC head Dali Mpofu, because the documentary had not been approved by an advisory body set up to guide the public broadcaster on cultural and traditional issues.
The advisory panel was set up a year ago after the broadcaster bowed to pressure from the National Heritage Council and Contralesa to halt a coming-of-age mini series titled Umthunzi Wentaba that traditionalists believed ”dishonoured” circumcision.
This week award-winning reporter Hazel Friedman’s full-length Eastern Cape investigation titled Rights of Passage was pulled hours before it was to be broadcast on Tuesday’s Special Assignment. Friedman’s report had looked into the death of 25-year-old University of Cape Town student Buntu Majalaza. He died of septicaemia as a result of a botched circumcision last year.
Special Assignment staff members tell of a frantic last-minute rush to make Mpofu a copy of the programme so that he could suspend the broadcast.
Friedman, who won the Vodacom Journalist of the Year Award last year, said this week that she was ”outraged” by Mpofu’s decision. In making the programme she had consulted provincial ministers for culture and health in both the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape and had received permission to film in hospitals.
”The programme was approved by our Special Assignment executive producer Johann Abrahams and head of current affairs Themba Mthembu.
”I know that we are not allowed to talk to the media but I am certainly allowed to speak in defence of a story that was absolutely respectful of tradition. It did not violate any secrets or undermine the role of any legal representative or any legal cultural custodians,” Friedman said.
A staff member who spoke off the record said Mthembu and head of television news Amrit Manga had viewed the final edit of the programme and were also alarmed when Mpofu had single-handedly pulled the completed work off air. As the editor in chief and SABC Group chief executive officer Mpofu is allowed to take unilateral decisions.
Kaizer Kganyago, SABC spokesperson, said on Wednesday that the programme had been suspended because ”we had not consulted everybody. Umthunzi Wentaba caused a lot of hoo-ha and we committed to consult widely before we flight any programme of this nature. By [Tuesday] we had not finalised all the steps that we wanted to go through and a decision was made to put the programme on hold.”
Contralesa president, Chief Phathekile Holomisa, told the Mail & Guardian that Mpofu’s move had been ”a good decision. We feel in the first place that some of our cultural rituals, especially this one, don’t need to be flighted on television. This is a private ritual requiring the presence and participation of those directly involved.”
He said the media did have a duty to expose unscrupulous operators of back-yard initiations, ”as [long as] they do it in a manner that brings this ritual into disrepute. There are structures that are meant to deal with problems emanating from malpractices.”
Holomisa said he had not viewed the programme before the objection had been sent to Mpofu; in fact the objection from Contralesa chairperson of the Eastern Cape Ngangomhlaba Matanzima, had been sent to Mpofu on the strength of a promotion that had been airing on television since last Friday.
When asked if this was an act of censorship Holomisa said: ”It is complex, not a straightforward matter. You are talking about the media’s freedom of expression. But there are other freedoms: freedom to privacy and the freedom to exercise your cultural rights.”