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Truly candid, candid camera

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:59

If you watched the SABC news coverage of the COP 17 Climate Change Conference last Thursday, you would have seen a very different version of what was, as per a camera veritι recording by someone on the ground of actual events now posted on YouTube, an awful, anti-democractic incident.

Well known South African filmmaker Rehad Desai (whose documentary The Weather Gods was shown at a Greenpeace COP 17 side event) together with other activists was brutally thrown out of a feedback session with President Jacob Zuma in Durban. Why? Because he and the activists held up posters urging Zuma to stand with Africa and not the West on issues of global warming. A group of COP 17 volunteers, hired by the Durban City Municipality, were guilty of the forced eviction. Shockingly, Rehad was punched in the face, kicked and spat at in the process.

I did not see the SABC coverage myself but according to Professor Jane Duncan of Rhodes University (and formerly of the Freedom of Expression Institute), it portrayed the showing of the posters as a disruption of the meeting.

 Says Jane: “No mention was made in the SABC’s report of the City volunteers’ violence against the activists. It then went on to say that once calm was restored, President Zuma delivered his climate change message. No mention was made of Zuma's condemnation of the treatment of the activists, and his affirmation of the right to protest and of free speech.

“The overall message that was conveyed was of a group of protestors, including Rehad, who disrupted the meeting and caused all the trouble. This was a gross distortion of events. Holding up a poster does not amount to a disruption. Rehad calling for the intervention of the chair to stop the Municipality volunteers from removing the posters and tearing them up does not constitute a disruption. The SABC simply took the side of the volunteers and the Municipality. Their coverage was disgraceful in its bias.”

Astonishingly, the United Nations coordinator for the media at the climate talks in Durban (COP 17), Kevin Grose, was quoted as saying that the SABC had been very professional in its coverage of the conference.

I spoke to Rehad today and he is clearly emotionally traumatised in addition to the physical injuries sustained during the attack. He is in the process of laying a complaint against the SABC to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission. In addition, together with fellow activists Samantha Hargreaves of ActionAid and Ferrial Adam of Greenpeace, Rehad is laying a charge of assault against Durban City manager Mike Sutcliffe who hired the COP 17 volunteers. And all because he wasn’t allowed to hold up a poster at a public meeting.

Joanna Sterkowicz



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