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2011-11-20 Africa Subsaharan
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S. African Paper blacks out front page in censorship protest
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A leading South African newspaper has blacked out several columns in its latest issue, echoing censorship of the apartheid era, after being threatened with criminal prosecution by a presidential aide.
The weekly Mail & Guardian was forced to pull a front page story about Mac Maharaj's possible involvement in a shady arms deal. Maharaj, a former Robben Island prisoner who helped smuggle out Nelson Mandela's autobiography, is now spokesman for president Jacob Zuma. The newspaper said it received a legal letter from him just before its Thursday evening deadline, warning that its journalists could face prosecution, carrying up to 15 years in jail, if it published details of a police investigation into a mid-1990s arms deal that led to convictions of other government officials for bribery.
The dispute comes as South Africa's parliament debates a new law on state secrets that would see whistleblowers who divulge classified information, and journalists who publish such documents, facing possible imprisonment. Critics said the penalties were draconian and the bill aimed at intimidating media outlets trying to expose corruption. The Mail & Guardian described Maharaj's intervention as a "chilling forewarning of what may happen if the protection of state information bill is adopted in its current form."
The 30bn rand (£2.4bn, or $3.65bn) contracts to buy European military equipment has been described as the "original sin" of South Africa's young democracy. Zuma himself was implicated but not convicted. 
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Posted by Pappy 2011-11-20 00:00||
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