The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) last night heard the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) complaint over the removal of its advert by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), with the opposition party arguing the removal of the advert infringed on freedom of expression.
The complaint centres around the SABC’s removal of the party’s “Ayisafani” advertisement, in which the DA claims the ruling African National Congress (ANC) is “corrupt” and “for the connected few”, and showed pictures of alleged police brutality.
HumanIPO reported yesterday the the case was brought forward to yesterday after the DA threatened to take legal action after it was initially postponed until Thursday. The hearing was adjourned until 6pm today.
The South African Press Association (SAPA) reports Steven Budlender for the DA said the SABC had rejected one television advert and five radio adverts,constituting an infringement on freedom of expression.
“The SABC is not a private broadcaster. It is accordingly obliged to fulfil the bill of rights. It is owned and controlled by South Africans and must be fair and unbiased,” Budlender said, adding the SABC was obligated to offer a plurality of views as half of South African viewers watched it.
“This means it is critical that political parties wanting to advertise on the SABC are not barred,” he said. “We are 21 days away from a democratic general election. It is an event of monumental significance.”
SABC attorney Ronnie Bokwa said the state broadcaster acted properly in withdrawing the advert, which he said was due to four reasons – that one of the adverts incited violence; that some made false allegations against members of other political parties; that Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) regulations ban one product from attacking another to promote itself, and that no advert can specifically attack individual candidates.
He said some of the language and the visuals used in the advert were inflammatory and therefore could not be seen as freedom of speech.
“From a responsible broadcaster’s point of view, we felt to flight the advert would create the impression that there is an imminent threat of violence.”
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