Whether you called it black Tuesday, Tuesday the 11th of November or the day after Monday; today was an important day in the future of how information is shared in South Africa. Below is a list of quotes and events which helped shape the day:



 


·         - Protestors and activists dress in black protest outside of Luthuli House in Johannesburg, the Hector Peterson Memorial in Soweto and Parliament in Cape Town.

·         - ‘The only result this unfortunate comparison (comparing black Tuesday to apartheid protest march black Wednesday) and planned campaign… will achieve is to dilute the real history of the black Wednesday and insult the victims of apartheids barbaric laws” ANC Chief whip Mathole Motshekga.

·         - Right 2 Know Activists lower the flag to half mast in mourning.

·         - TNS Research says that 81% of respondents believe that the media should be fully independent.

·         - Editors of 18 daily news publications release a joint editorial labelling the Protection of Information Bill “the first piece of legislation since the end of apartheid that dismantle an aspect of democracy”.

·         - The ANC parliamentary caucus labels opposition to the bill as “a distortion of facts”

·         - "In an effective democracy, the opposition needs a variety of instruments to be effective… (Including) free media, without these instruments you end up with a paralysed opposition and a cosmetic democracy” FF Pieter Mulder.

·         - “I shudder to think that men and woman who  say that money is being stolen will be locked up in the name of the African National Conference , I am ashamed that this is the party who put this forward”    COPE Leader Mosiuoa Lekota.

·         - “What will you? The members of this side of the house, tell your grandchildren one day. I know that you will tell them you fought for freedom but will you also tell them that you helped to destroy it” Lindiwe Mazibuko, DA Parliamentary leader.

·         - “Most opponents of this law have not read it, The ANC supports the Protection of Information Bill because it repels P.W Botha’s 1982 Protection of Information Act, those oppositions to this bill want P.W. Botha’s to remain on our statute…  don’t want those family and relatives to have closure”  Llewellyn Landers, ANC.

·         - Top ANC officials, including those who have publicly called for a public interest clause, vote in favour of implementing the Protection of Information Bill.

·         - Vote: 229 in favour, 107 against, 2 Abstinence vote, +- 62 members absent.

·         - South African National Editors Forum (SANEF) Editors walk out, led by Chairperson Mondli Makhanya, after the vote is announced.

·         - “ All of us here, we are broken inside, we never thought we would come here dressed in black to witness the constitution of our country being betrayed by those who built it” SANEF chairperson Mondli Makhanya.