South Africa: The ANC is Worse Than Apartheid Was - Following Zimbabwe on Media Freedom

“This is worse than anything under apartheid,” says Raymond Louw. “The powers the government is taking to curb the press are far wider now and the powers given to the SS Minister—the Minister for State Security—are far greater.”

Mr. Louw is something of a South African institution. He was the news editor of the country’s leading anti-apartheid newspaper, the Rand Daily Mail, at the height of apartheid and then edited the paper for 11 years in the teeth of government hostility. Now 84, he still edits a press digest, Southern African Report, and plays a leading role in the national Editors Forum and the Freedom of Expression Institute. So when he calls the government’s recent media laws “the worst attack on press freedom I’ve seen in my career,” he knows whereof he speaks.'

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