Newspaper apologises to church in face of boycott

The Sunday World has issued an apology to the Zion Christian Church (ZCC) in the wake of a threat from 16m church members and sympathisers to boycott the Sunday World, Sowetan, Sunday Times and other newspapers owned by the Tiso Blackstar Group. According to a report in The Citizen, the paper admitted it had ‘created a wrong and misleading impression that a court had made a pronouncement’ to the effect that ZCC church leader Bishop Barnabas Lekganyane was facing arrest. The newspaper corrected this yesterday (Sunday), saying the matter had in fact been a civil dispute between the ZCC and five of its branches in Botswana.