Dear Writer,

The following protest against the Protection of Information Bill and the Media Tribunal
was initiated by Nadine Gordimer in cooperation with André Brink.
All South African WRITERS are invited to sign. The petition will be presented to
President Jacob Zuma.

If you would like to support the petition, please send your name to: writers@mweb.co.za.
Thank you!

Should you already have signed this petition, please ignore the present request.

WRITERS AGAINST PROTECTION OF INFORMATION BILL /

MEDIA TRIBUNAL

Freedom of expression along with the vote – universal suffrage – is the basis of
democracy.
Muzzling this freedom affects directly print and other media in the responsibility
and necessity of their function, which is to keep citizens informed of all aspects that
affect life in the country, whether by government edict, the law, economic practice, or the
ethical standards of individual behaviour. Denial of freedom of expression makes a
mockery of the profession of journalism – the print press and the media in general. This
does not imply freedom should be granted for hate speech in any form, including
advocation of violence: our Constitution deals with that: “Bill of Rights. Freedom of
expression. The right does not extend to a) propaganda for war, b) incitement of
imminent violence; or c) advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or
religion, and that constitutes incitement to cause harm.”
As writers – whether novelists, poets, playwrights, essayists, historians,
biographers or others - we too are threatened by denial of freedom of the word, our form
of expression of the lives of the people of South Africa at the level of deep complexity,
within the forces of government, the financial and personal codes of the powerful in
relation to the ideal of equality and of human dignity, to which the new South Africa
subscribes.
Among the signatures below are those of writers whose work was banned under
the apartheid regime. We are threatened again, now with a gag over the word processor if
we penetrate the ‘transparency’ promised in the new South Africa, which a Media
Tribunal will replace with the descent of a shutter over the dialogue of the arts in the
attempt of understanding who and what we are, where we come from and what we may
yet become.
The press and all writers who use the word professionally are threatened by
censorship, which is the reality lurking behind the euphemism ‘Media Tribunal’. But we
do not protest against the institution of such a ‘Media Tribunal – Word Police’ merely on
our own behalf. Writing presupposes an interaction with readers. And so, if the work and
the freedom of the writer are in jeopardy, the freedom of every reader in South Africa is
in danger. Consequently our protest is an action undertaken by South Africans for all
South Africans, committing ourselves to a demand for our free country: freedom of
thought expressed, freedom of dialogue, freedom from fear of the truth about ourselves,
all South Africans.