Freedom of speech for sale….

This week the DA Youth applied for permission to peacefully protest outside the Malawian High Commission in Pretoria. Tshwane’s response: “please take note that as a host city for the 2010 FIFA world cup, we have suspended all other events including the marches.”

The regulation of gatherings act only allows for anticipated violence and property damage as a motivation for declining a march, not a lack of resources and certainly not a sports event. The city of Tshwane handed over more than just Loftus this week; it handed over our constitutional right to freedom of speech.

This week has seen many reports of human rights abuses in Africa; Malawi has sentenced two individuals to 14 years hard labor for “gross indecency” and “unnatural acts”. This despite the fact that Malawi has ratified treatises such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. These, with the Malawian constitution, prevent criminalization of Malawi citizens based on their sexual orientation.

 In South Africa, a long hard war was fought to secure our freedoms. Freedom of speech, association, sexual orientation, religion. Freedoms which other countries in Africa also “guarantee” their citizens.

When these freedoms are threatened outside of our borders, it is our moral obligation to speak out, condemn the actions and demand rectification, just like other countries spoke out against the abuses of Apartheid. This moral obligation cannot be avoided through sovereignty excuses. The governments voting record on the UN security council, and responses to human rights abuses in Burma, Zimbabwe, Malawi and many others, including our own lack of freedom of speech, has generated many disturbing questions.

If South Africa does not stand up against human rights abuses, who in Africa will? Will this government uphold our own constitutional rights if it does not care about the constitutional rights of other Africans? What does the government have to gain by the silence, and by trying to silence us.

But we will not be silenced. We call on our own citizens to stand up and demand our own freedoms back.  We will continue to lodge applications for gatherings across the country, despite the FIFA world cup, until we win this right back.

For media enquiries please conact Aimee Franklin on 072 232 0127.