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Public comments as delivered to parliament

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In the Media

Media watchdogs SOS Support Public Broadcasting and Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) have outrightly rejected the new SABC Bill and call for its withdrawal. In a joint statement issued by SOS: Support Public Broadcasting, previously known as Save Our SABC Coalition, as well as Media Monitoring Africa, the two media advocacy groups say the Bill presents extreme threats to the SABC’s editorial and institutional independence. Interest groups say while the Bill is supposed to improve the functioning of the SABC as a multi- channel, multi-platform content services provider, making it better suited to fulfil its mandate, it seems to do the opposite, and it fails to address the public broadcaster’s funding model. Joining us now are SOS: Support Public Broadcasting Coalition National Coordinator Uyanda Siyotula, as well as two media experts Professor Justine Limpitlaw, electronic communications consultant, also professor at LINK Centre, WITS, and BEMAWU President Hannes du Buisson.

SABC News — Media & Society | Proposed SABC Bill

The SABC is pinning its hopes on the passing of the SABC Bill by the end of the year, in order to become financially sustainable. The legislation aims to reform the corporation’s funding model and the TV licensing system. This is as the public broadcaster tabled its 2022/23 annual report in Parliament, which reveals that it recorded a net loss of over one-point-one billion rand.

Parliament has again been urged to process the SABC Bill speedily, as it is vital for the broadcaster to perform optimally. If not, the organisation may have to ask for another bailout. This is according to SABC board Chairperson, Khathutshelo Ramukumba who appeared before the Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies. Ramukumba has told MPs this Bill needs to be finalised, to deal with the viability of the public broadcaster’s current funding model.

Memorandum of Objects and Summary of Clauses

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The SABC Bill

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Freedom of Religion SA (FOR SA)

TEMPLATE PROVIDED BY FOR SA

I strongly oppose the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill [B9B – 2018], which I believe to be unconstitutional and unnecessary, for the following reasons:

  1. The Bill violates our constitutional rights as religious persons to express our religious beliefs without fear of punishment or persecution (section 15, read with section 16). Increasingly, around the world but also in South Africa, various holy scriptures (particularly on contentious issues) are regarded as “politically incorrect” or “offensive”, allegedly causing emotional and/or social harm.
  2. I specifically oppose the Bill’s:
    1. wide definition of “harm” (in Clause 1);
    2. the failure to define “hatred” (in Clause 1); and
    3. definition of, and creation of, the crime of “hate speech” (in Clause 4).
  3. The creation of the crime of “hate speech” for saying / distributing something which could possibly be construed as “harmful”, will have certain unintended consequences, namely the criminalisation of good / well-meaning people who will be prosecuted for saying what they sincerely believe (according to their holy texts) and sent to jail.
  4. There are already sufficient existing laws dealing with “hate speech”.
  5. For all of the reasons given, I ask:
    1. For the scrapping of the “hate speech” sections from the Bill altogether;
    2. Alternatively, should the “hate speech” provisions remain part of the Bill, we ask:
      1. That “harm” be defined as: “gross emotional and psychological detriment that objectively and severely undermines the human dignity of the targeted group”; and
      2. That “hatred” be defined as: “strong and deeply-felt emotions of enmity, ill-will, detestation, malevolence and vilification against members of an identifiable group, that implies that members of that group are to be despised, scorned, denied respect and subjected to ill-treatment based on their group affiliation”.
    3. That Clause 4(2)(d) (the “religious exemption clause”) be strengthened as follows to protect:
      “expression of any religious conviction, tenet, belief, teaching, doctrine or writings, by a religious organisation or an individual, in public or in private, to the extent that such expression does not actively support, instigate, exhort, or call for extreme detestation, vilification, enmity, ill-will and malevolence that constitutes incitement to cause gross emotional and psychological harm that severely undermines the dignity of the targeted group, based on race, ethnicity, gender, religion or sexual orientation”.