SABC not clear on why access to SW Radio Africa website is restricted

By Tererai Karimakwenda
23 April, 2007

Last week we reported that computers at the South Africa Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) were denying journalists access to SW Radio Africa’s website. A search for our web address returns a message that says “Access to the requested URL has been denied by SABC Policy.”
Several staff members at SABC verified this last Friday and the head of television news, Amrat Manga, told us he was not aware of the policy but would investigate. A trial done by our web master also showed that it is our domain name that is being blocked.

On Monday we talked to Fakir Hassen who works in the IT division and he confirmed that SABC has what he called “control measures” in place that restrict access to pornography, downloading large files and audio streaming. He stressed that it had nothing to do with censuring any radio station. Regarding written stories Hassen said: “There is no problem in accessing a website that is purely word in content, if you will. When it comes to audio downloads etcetera, there are restrictions there.”

But when we asked several employees at SABC, in different departments, to try and access some websites that have audio streaming, they told us the sites opened without a problem and allowed them to read the text. It is when they wanted to open the streaming that they were blocked. Among the sites tested were South Africa’s Radio 702, Radio Veritas, Afrosounds FM and several websites that cover Zimbabwe. This indicated that there is a different reason for the blocking of our website.
It is not just the audio streaming that is blocked but the entire site, so not even the text can be read. Asked to comment on this Hassen said: “We are not sure exactly what is going on. The guys in that department are not available. Let’s wait for the experts to let us know.”

SW Radio Africa will continue to investigate this issue to determine exactly what is going on.

SABC has recently been highly criticised for a blacklist that came to light which included Zimbabwe’s Archbishop Pius Ncube, publisher Trevor Ncube and human rights activist Elinor Sisulu. SABC journalists were banned from interviewing them in any stories on Zimbabwe. An interview with outspoken Archbishop Pius Ncube was also edited out of a television story by the head of SABC news.