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SABC Security Guards use brutal force against peaceful picketers
by Faith ka-Manzi and Virginia Magwaza-Setshedi
Tuesday, Feb. 06, 2007 at 1:57 PM
JOHANNESBURG, 6 FEBRUARY 2006 - Members of several social movements including workers of the Freedom of Expression Institute were beaten up by security personnel while picketing inside Radiopark at the SABC offices in Johannesburg. Among picketers were elderly women and men including a disabled activist who was severely injured. The head of security at the SABC was alleged to have called the picketers kaffers.
"FXI with other social movements cutting across all sectors of society staged a picket to raise the plight of poor communities which SABC is accountable to as a public broadcast and as part of it's mandate which says that they should educate, inform and entertain in the manner that is not biased and without prejudiced" said FXI organiser Mr. Torong Ramela.
He said that today's picketing was a follow-up on the memorandum which was submitted last year on the 16 th on November 2006 which the SABC had committed to address. The memorandum had an ultimatum that the SABC should respond to by the end of 2006. The memorandum amongst other included like the question around the independence of the SABC, the censorship practices that took place at the SABC especially on the canning of the "Thabo Mbeki" documentary and the blacklisting of the independent political commentators.
Thami Hukwe, the disabled activist from Masifundisane in Freedom Park, said that while he was singing during the picketing SABC security personnel wanted to haul him and other comrades outside but that they had refused. Hukwe was then beaten and had sustained serious injuries on his right foot. Thabang Makhele also from Masifundisane like most activists picketing at the SABC was also manhandled and had broken half a tooth. Tow of those violently hauled from the SABC premises were an elderly woman and a gentleman.
Police who were summoned by the SABC and who had arrived in five vans had not used any violence but had wanted to talk with the picketers. A member of the SABC management team had come to hear the grievances of the picketers and said that she would facilitate talks between these social movements and SABC.
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