(MISA/IFEX) – On Friday 12 October 2001, the South African Union of Journalists (SAUJ) reported that a bodyguard assigned to protect Eastern Cape Premier Makhenkesi Stofile had assaulted a reporter. The SAUJ said in a statement that Sam Mkholeli, of news agency Eastern Cape News (ECN), was attacked on Wednesday 10 October, and it was […]
(MISA/IFEX) – On Friday 12 October 2001, the South African Union of Journalists (SAUJ) reported that a bodyguard assigned to protect Eastern Cape Premier Makhenkesi Stofile had assaulted a reporter.
The SAUJ said in a statement that Sam Mkholeli, of news agency Eastern Cape News (ECN), was attacked on Wednesday 10 October, and it was significant that the premier had issued a statement a few days earlier in which he condemned the reporter.
“Premier Stofile’s condemnation of the journalist as a ‘rabid liar’ and ‘a disgrace to journalism’ was itself an assault on Mkholeli, which, in the SAUJ’s view, served as an incentive for other government officials or employees or anyone else in the province sympathetic to premier Stofile’s sentiments to launch an attack on the ECN journalist,” the union said.
Source: South African Press Agency (Sapa)
