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Press Council Exec Director appeals ombud on HuffPo hate speech ruling

The Executive Director of South Africa’s Press Council, Joe Thloloe, has applied for leave to appeal the Press Ombudman’s hate speech ruling against The Huffington Post SA (HuffPo SA).

Last week, the ombudsman ruled that an op-ed published last week on HuffPo SA entitled “Could it be time to deny white men the franchise?” constituted hate speech.

Ombud Johan Retief said the piece violated numerous sections of the Press Code and ordered HuffPo SA to issue an apology. Furthermore, the ombud indicted the site’s staff and its then editor-in-chief, Verashni Pillay, of neither fact-checking the false statistics quoted in the article, nor properly identifying the author of the piece. Pillay resigned shortly after the ruling was announced.

The ruling has drawn criticism from various commentators on a variety of publications – The Daily Maverick, The Mail & Guardian and Independent Media among them – who say that it undermines free speech.

“The ruling has ignited a veld fire of commentary in the media from practitioners, media freedom activists, academics and the public in general,” Thloloe writes in his appeal.

The Ombud’s ruling traverses two sections of the Code of Ethics and Conduct for South African Print and Online Media, Discrimination and Hate Speech (5) and Protected Comment (7),” he writes.

“The Press Council now seeks clarity from its highest adjudication wing, the Appeals Panel, on how to interpret these clauses going forward. Your ruling would then guide the work of the Public Advocate, the Ombud and indeed the Press Council.”

You can read Joe Thloloe’s full statement over on HuffPo SA.

 

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