The South African Editors Forum (SANEF) is accusing the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) of acting unconstitutionally.
The party has barred journalists from the Daily Maverick, the Citizen and other media houses from attending its elective conference in Johannesburg this weekend.
SANEF says journalists should not be excluded for merely doing their job.
“SANEF wants the EFF to include a diversity of journalists at it elective conference. We believe that citizens deserve information from all different perspectives both from critical voices and basically all kind of media houses. So what we are worried about is it seems that the EFF is actually not including all different groups and it sounds like all the critical voices have been excluded,” says SANEF’s Director Kate Skinner.
But the EFF is rubbishing SANEF’s claims.
The party says it was technically impossible to accommodate the over 600 journalists who applied for accreditation.
EFF leader Julius Malema says some media house’s numbers of journalists were reduced to prevent duplication.
Malema adds that the Daily Maverick and the media group’s investigative unit, amaBhungane, were not banned but were just not invited because the EFF has no relationship with the media house.
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