R2K announces national Freedom Week action
The Right2Know campaign is hosting a series of events to mark South African “Freedom Week” – 27 April (Freedom Day), 1 May (Worker’s Day) and 3 May (World Press Freedom Day) – in recognition and celebration of the struggles and victories that all citizens, workers and journalists have fought for, to secure our collective ‘freedom’. (See events here.)
Over the past 20 months, opposition to the Secrecy Bill has united ordinary people from across all manner of struggles, across geographical distance and across South Africa’s segregated landscape of race, class, and language. We are joined in a common struggle to defend and advance the ‘right to know’ for all, a right that is essential to the enjoyment of our freedom.
As the Right2Know, we seek a country and a world where we all have the right to know – that is to be free to access and to share information. This right is fundamental to any democracy that is open, accountable, participatory and responsive; able to deliver the social, economic and environmental justice we need. On this foundation a society and an international community can be built in which we all live free from want, in equality and in dignity.
In Parliament, the Secrecy Bill has been the subject of delays, diversions, and disciplinary actions. Despite a number of crucial victories in 2011 to amend the Bill, the outstanding concerns around the scope, concentration of powers and harshness of penalties will continue to galvanise civil society opposition to the Bill. There is a great deal of work to do as the NCOP seeks to finalise the Bill by 17 May 2012, in less than four weeks.
Recognising that the Secrecy Bill and more recently the Spy Bill are symptoms and symbols of much broader and longer-term threats to our right to know and freedom of expression, this is a campaign that goes beyond any single piece of legislation. The rights to access and share information, to speak up and to shout out, have always been and will always remain central to all struggles for justice, freedom and equality.
We call on all corners of society to mark 27 April (Freedom Day), 1 May (Worker’s Day) and 3 May (World Press Freedom Day), as opportunities to recognise and celebrate hard-fought battles and hard-won victories in the struggle to realise these rights, and to reflect on the challenges that lie ahead.
GET INVOLVED
* Support the events in your area, invite others via our Facebook page. If you would like to help but can’t attend, consider making a donation via EFT. (Our banking details are here.)
GET INFORMED
* Download more info about the Secrecy Bill, the Spy Bill and other threats to our right to know here.
