Today we marched to signal our protest at the ANC's plans to destroy the free press.

We form part of a groundswell of political activists, journalists, civil society groups, professional bodies and concerned individuals who refuse to accept this attempt to curb a civil liberty so fundamental to the health of our democracy.

Our protest today symbolises our rejection of the Protection of Information Bill and the proposed Media Tribunal.

Both signal a return to apartheid-era censorship and secrecy.

Both are designed to protect the ruling party from public scrutiny.

Both are designed to give the ANC freedom to loot and freedom from accountability.

They present a clear and present danger to our constitutional order.

We refuse to accept that the last sixteen years have been the South African equivalent of the ‘Prague Spring'.

We refuse to accept that our constitutional democracy will one day be seen as a brief interlude between two authoritarian regimes.

We will never allow the ANC to take us back to an era when the government tried to control everything we saw, heard and read.

We have come too far to go backwards.

It is fitting that our march today started at the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism. Because we are here to advance and defend journalism at a time when the ANC wants to criminalise it.

It is appropriate that the march ended at the Constitutional Court. Because you can be sure that we will be back here if this Bill manages to get through Parliament in its current form.

And, not far from here, is the Apartheid Museum. It houses all the artifacts and memorabilia that remind us how morally repugnant that system was. Apartheid used race as a means to divide people. It invoked what it called the "national interest" to justify limiting people's freedom. It benefited a clique who used their political connections to get rich. It was an abuse of power.

In that museum you might find some of the legislation that was passed under apartheid. You will find the Group Areas Act that determined where people could live according to the colour of their skin. You will find the Immorality Act which prohibited sexual relations across the colour bar.

And, in that museum, you may find the speech by BJ Vorster from 1973 where he threatened to close down newspapers that were critical of government policy. You may even find the 1977 Newspaper Bill which tried to establish a ‘press council' to enforce a ‘press code' to regulate reporting. You may find the 1981 Commission of Inquiry into the Media which recommended the establishment of a media tribunal.

These documents do not belong in a democratic South Africa. That is why they are in a museum.

The Protection of Information Bill and the ANC's proposal for a media tribunal are a throw-back to apartheid. We think they should be in the apartheid museum too. They certainly have no place in a democratic South Africa.

* Helen Zille, Leader of the Democratic Alliance