2 April 1998

FOREIGN TELEVISION CREW ARRESTED AND PREVENTED FROM INTERVIEWING FARM WORKERS

Two journalists from YCE Television News of Finland on April 2 were allegedly assaulted by a farmer in the Northern Province before being arrested on charges of trespassing. The two journalists, Kirsia Crowley and cameraman Graham Walsh, were interviewing workers on the Schuitdrist Farm at Tshipise near Messina about testimony they had presented the previous day at the poverty hearings being held in the province. The journalists were accompanied by two field workers of the Nkuzi Development Association, a non-governmental organisation involved in land issues.

The farmer, Andries Fourie, arrived on the scene and called the police. He reportedly became aggressive and insulting, and threatened to attack Walsh but was stopped by the police. Fourie, however, kicked the cameras. The journalists as well as the two field workers were taken into custody by the police after Fourie accused them of trespassing, entering the farm on false pretences and intimidating the farm labourers. He vowed the lay formal charges against the journalists. They were released from custody after a short while following intervention by the Northern Province police commissioner.

The journalists had been following up on testimony presented by the workers, who said farmers were illegally evicting and dismissing FARM WORKERS who were born on their farms and who had worked on the farms all their lives. The poverty hearings are being held around the country under the auspices of the South African National NGO Coalition, the Human Rights Commission and the Commission on Gender Equality. The aim of the hearings is to allow poor people to speak out about poverty and to put forward suggestions to policy makers on programmes which can be adopted to alleviate poverty.
 

ENDS