Police have backed down from threats to arrest journalists and seize computers from the Daily Voice newsroom.
|||Cape Town - Police have backed down from threats to arrest journalists and seize computers from the Daily Voice newsroom.
On Wednesday last week, eight Mitchells Plain-based officers – led by Warrant Officer Morne Jackson – burst into the Daily Voice’s offices and demanded all records and computer equipment relating to a story they published last month.
The story was about two pupils who were filmed having sex in the back of a classroom during school hours.
The officers were armed with a search warrant and came to take away the newspaper’s computers.
This action would have effectively shut down the paper.
Top Daily Voice legal eagles Jacques Louw and Leroy Vilet swung into action and obtained a High Court order to suspend the warrant.
And this week, the State confirmed it would not now be proceeding with the warrant.
“This is a victory for freedom of speech – and common sense,” says Daily Voice editor Shane Doran.
“If the warrant was executed, this reckless and unconstitutional act could have shut down this newspaper and threatened the livelihoods of all our journalists.
“It went entirely against the rights enshrined in Section 16 of the constitution and was a complete waste of taxpayers’ hard-earned money.
“This was a blatant attempt to kill the messenger and bully the Daily Voice – but it was also an unlawful act that had no justification in law.”
On March 16, the Daily Voice published a front page story headlined: “Sex in class video.”
The story was based on cellphone footage – sent to the paper by a concerned parent – of two pupils having sex in the back of a classroom.
The footage was filmed by a third student.
The Daily Voice immediately handed the footage over to the Western Cape Education Department, who launched their own investigation into the incident.
It subsequently emerged the video was filmed last May and had gone viral among students on the Cape Flats.
The three students have been charged under the Film and Publication Act, but a decision to prosecute the three has still not been made.
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