Malema throws out 'bastard' UK journalist

Malema was criticising the Movement for Democratic Change for speaking out against his visit to Zimbabwe from its air-conditioned office in Sandton when the Zimbabwe masses were strugging on the ground, when BBC journalist Jonah Fisher mentioned that the Youth League leader lived in Sandton. An angry Malema retorted: 'Here you behave or else you jump. Don't come here with that white tendency, go out bastard, bloody agent'. According to Business Day he also said: 'If you are not going to behave we are going to call security to take you out. This is not a newsroom ... this is a revolutionary house (Luthuli House) and you don't come here with your white tendency. Don't come here with that white tendency.' Full Mail & Guardian Online report Full Business Day report See also a report on the IoL site

All the journalists present should have left in solidarity with him, the National Press Club said yesterday, according to a report on the News24 site. 'Journalists need to stick together. It is entirely appropriate to walk out should a news conference degenerate into a shouting match and should journalists be sworn at and insulted,' said chairperson Yusuf Abramjee. 'This is not the first time that Malema has chosen to attack journalists and it appears to have become a trend in the past few weeks.' A total news blackout has been called for by some journalists, says a report in The Mercury. 'I have been inundated with calls from the media and some editors who have described his behaviour as nothing short of intolerable,' Abramjee is quoted as saying. Full report on the News24 site Full report in The Mercury (subscription needed)

The attack amounted to censorship, the SA National Editors' Forum (Sanef) said. 'It is totally unacceptable to treat a journalist that way for doing his job of asking a pointed question,' the forum said, according to a report on the IoL site. 'Expelling journalists who ask uncomfortable questions from press conferences amounts to censorship.' Sanef's media freedom committee chairperson, Thabo Leshilo, said the forum took strong exception to Fisher being sworn at 'in an attempt to humiliate him'. Leshilo said that in light of this incident, journalists might in future have to 'decline invitations to press conferences of the Youth League'. Full report on the IoL site

There is concern that press freedom is increasingly coming under threat, with Sanef having issued one statement after another in recent months condemning attacks on press freedom, notes Business Day. It points out that besides Malema's attack yesterday, which came on the heels of AWB secretary-general Andre Visagie walking out on an e.tv talk show on the relationship between farm workers and their bosses after he became unhappy about how the interview was being handled, there have been several other incidents, which are listed in the report online. It quotes Anton Harber, head of the Wits University journalism department, as saying there is a 'worrying disrespect' for the media emerging. 'The media at the moment are being tough on a number of issues and this is leading to a lot of intolerance from a number of quarters,' he says. 'The only way the media can stand up to this is with good solid reporting and to support each other when an individual journalist is targeted.' Full Business Day report

Malema also took the opportunity at the same conference to defy the ANC's instructions that its members remain silent on AWB leader Eugene Terre'Blanche's death. 'Our hands do not have blood. We have not caused his death,' said Malema. He was responding to a question by The Citizen on whether he saw a link between his singing of the controversial 'shoot the boer' and the killing of Terre'Blanche. 'I have nothing to do with the murder of this old man. We were in Zimbabwe when this (murder) happened. It is not about the song, they (alleged killers) wanted what was rightly theirs - salary. He accused the media of turning a 'racist' Terre'Blanche into a 'hero'. The report says on the issue of the banning of the 'shoot the boer' words, Malema charged that the judiciary was still untransformed, and that some judges harboured an agenda against the ruling party Full report in The Citizen