WHY IS THE NIA SPYING ON SABC STAFF?

27 August 2015

Congress of the People grows more suspicious everyday about the intention of the ruling party to create a police state. As in most police states, spies are either planted everywhere or the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) or its equivalent is made to spy on citizens to advance the agenda of the ruling party (see News24 report).

Under Hlaudi Motsoeneng and Faith Muthambi the public broadcaster will soon become the ANCBC. ANC voters have yielded their cranial neurons to President Zuma. They see no wrong in the steady erosion of the rule of law and distrust no action aimed at undermining the Constitution. They seem not to care a jot that the gains of our democracy are being encroached upon steadily.

In a vibrant democracy, all self-respecting democrats will take offence if the NIA were to walk into provincial offices of the public broadcaster, which belongs to all of us, and throw out employees from their offices to make secret searches. Furthermore, they would be revolted if the staff were threatened with dismissal if they dared disclose what was happening.

COPE will not be surprised if the NIA had removed computers or installed secret surveillance equipment. This is how, by little steps, tyranny overthrows democracy.

The NIA’s business is to protect the state, not to harass journalists and media workers. They are not the enemy of the state. Every South African should recognise that this is an insidious operation by the NIA. It will destroy Mandela’s legacy, rubbish the Freedom Charter and diminish our democracy.

The Public Protector is under attack. The judiciary is under attack. The media is under attack. Now, even the SABC staff is under suspicion and will soon be under attack. The more the ANC alliance messes up and reaps public anger, the more it seeks to attack those who reveal mega corruption, wide scale maladministration, unsavoury scandals and the increasing abuse of power.

COPE wants an explanation from Minister Faith Muthambi. Was this what “Baba” had wanted her to do and is that why she gladly obliged? Is this what we can expect under her as Minister of Communication? Or was this instigated by Hlaudi Motsoeneng with her blessing?

Let us not take this lying down. Citizen activism is needed now more than ever before. Our very freedom is under steady assault. If we don’t act now, tomorrow will be too late.

COPE demands that Muthambi explains to the nation what the NIA was doing at the SABC offices in Durban and why the staff there was treated so contemptuously and aggressively.

Statement issued by Dennis Bloem, COPE spokesperson, August 27 2015