Stop the Secrecy Bill in South Africa - Please act now

I got the following very helpful email from Avaaz.org which gives information on how you can stop the passing of the secrecy bill in South Africa.  This is a travesty of our democratic rights! Please join me in making a stand for freedom of the press in South Africa.

Dear friends across South Africa,

Sorry for the urgent note, but we literally only have hours now to stop the Secrecy Bill -- the National Assembly is called to vote on it this afternoon.

We stopped it last time -- after over 35,000 of us sent messages to the Chief Whips and thousands of us took to the street, they postponed the vote. Now, the unchanged bill is being pushed back to the floor after a sham public consultation this weekend that was only announced on Friday evening, and the ANC majority could force it through!

The same Chief Whips have the final word on the vote today -- if we call on them and Deputy President Motlanthe, the one outspoken ANC MP, we could block this shockingly regressive bill.

We only have hours left! Call the Chief Whips' and Motlanthe's offices now to halt the vote and protect our democracy -- it'll only take 5 minutes. Let's give them the public consultation that they have ignored:

Call Chief Whip Dr. Motshekga's office: 021 403 3860

Call Deputy President Mr. Motlanthe's office: 021 403 2353

The other Chief Whips:

Call Chief Whip Mr. Magwanishe's offices:
Cape Town -- 021 403 2211 // Constituency -- 011 873 7753

Call Chief Whip Ms. Ntwanambi's offices:
Cape Town -- 021 403 2429 // Constituency -- 021 785 4610

Call Chief Whip Mr. Davidson's office: 083 302 2199

Suggestions for your call:

• Say that you want the ANC to halt the vote and throw out this draconian bill that puts a shroud over government and undermines South Africa's hard won freedoms.
• Say that the public consultations were a sham with practically no one there and you expect the process to be revised and a real public consultation to take place as promised by the Chief Whips in September.
• Say you specifically object to a Secrecy Law that: gives up to 25 year jail sentences for anyone holding classified information; removes any protection for whistleblowers; has no public interest clause; and has no independent appeals mechanism.
• Say this vote could not come at a more worrying time, as more and more outrageous stories are coming out about government cronyism and corruption.
• Appeal to Deputy President Motlanthe to use his powers to halt the vote until a public interest defense clause is included as he announced earlier this month.
• Ask Chief Whip Davidson to bring the citizens messages to the floor of the debate.
• If you get a busy signal, don't stop calling. That means we're jamming their phone lines and the pressure on them is rising! Call now and help spread the word!
• After calling, post a message about how the call went -- to help Avaaz count the number of calls made, and demonstrate the wave of national protest to this bill being tabled -- we will give the numbers to the media.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_the_secrecy_bill_emergency_calls/?vl

This is our last chance to stop the NA vote on this bill and standup against this fatal pillage of South Africa's democracy.

With hope and determination,

Alice, David, Sam, Pascal, Ricken, Rewan and the whole Avaaz team

SOURCES:

Secrecy Bill returns unchanged (Mail & Guardian)
http://mg.co.za/article/2011-11-18-secrecy-bill-returns-unchanged

S.Africa poised to pass heated state secrets law (Reuters)
http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE7AK08W20111121

S.Africa's Gordimer warns on 'apartheid' secrecy bill (AFP)
http://news.yahoo.com/africas-gordimer-warns-apartheid-secrecy-bill-103541450.html

In order to be a good citizen of our nation we need to take responsibility for our rights.  Please join me in this.

Comments

[Lance Morrisey]

That's a great move. Everyone should support this. Good luck with the campaign.

[Dr Dion Forster]

Thanks for the support Lance - this is a decisive moment in the history of our young democracy. You may have heard by now that the ANC forced their members of parliament to vote in favor of the bill and so it was passed in 'the house'. It still needs to go before the President to be signed into law. Sadly that is a mere formality.

I have a sense that independent means of reporting the news and capturing the truth (such as blogs and independent websites) will become far more important as we go forward and the press becomes less and less free to report on government, corruption and the abuse of state power.

This is a sad state of affairs! We have much work to do!

With grace and peace,

Dion

[reinaelliston]

This secrecy bill shouldn't be passed. I think it'll just bring more trouble. I'll help you spread the news.