THE ANC-dominated parliament in South Africa has passed the controversial secrecy Bill by a massive majority, despite widespread opposition to the legislation from civil society groups and opposition parties.
Members of South Africa’s national assembly yesterday voted by 229 votes to 107 in favour of the Protection of State Information Bill, with two MPs abstaining from the ballot.
The African National Congress, which holds 264 seats in the house, called on all its MPs to participate in the vote, saying the Bill was needed to safeguard state secrets and national security.
Critics of the Bill that gives the state power to classify government documents as secret in the national interest have slammed the legislation.
They say it amounts to state censorship because it lacks a public interest clause and contains jail terms of up to 25 years for anyone found in possession of classified information.
The notion of “national interest” in the legislation is also too broad, they say, as it can include reports pertaining to government corruption and human rights abuses.
There is a widely held belief among those opposed to the Bill that the ANC is pushing it through parliament in its present form as part of a bid to gag the media, which has published numerous stories on government corruption with the aid of whistle blowers.
However, it also affects ordinary people as the Bill could make it more difficult to access data and reports pertaining to what government bodies are doing in their area.
Prior to the parliamentary vote, campaigners with freedom of information movement the Right2Know pleaded with parliamentarians to vote No, saying it was similar to laws used by the apartheid regime to control information.
The National Union of Mine Workers said it was worried the Bill would disadvantage whistleblowers and workers who were fighting corruption tooth and nail, while Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu called it an “insult” to South Africans.
South Africa’s National Editors Forum (Sanef) also ran front-page adverts in national newspapers yesterday condemning it.
“Every MP who presses the green button to vote Yes for the protection of state information Bill will at that moment take personal responsibility for the first piece of legislation since the end of apartheid that dismantles an aspect of our democracy – a betrayal that will haunt them forever,” the Sanef notice read.