As South
African citizens we have an obligation to respect and uphold to the principles
and interests of our constitution which consists of the bill of rights chapter
two of the constitution of the republic of South Africa. According to the
constitution of the republic everyone is entitled to freedom of expression in
section 16, which does not extend to propaganda for war, incitement of imminent
violence or advocacy for hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or
religion and constitutes incitement to cause harm. I openly agree with the
statement “Somizi was wrong to publish a journalist’s contact information an
ask followers to invade her privacy”.
Somizi’s action was wrong at all angles and
it must never be encouraged because he was inciting violence towards the
journalists, because his followers indeed did exactly what he instructed them
to do, according to recent reports the journalist have received number of
threats from people she doesn’t know.as a country we are battling with the
spread of gender based violence cases, where women and children are kidnapped
and brutally killed and some go missing without a trace.
Somizi was reckless on his comment because
as a public figure your right to privacy becomes outweighed ,he should have
known that by now because he’s been in the media industry for so many years as
he claims that the journalists invaded his privacy ,firstly he is the one who
announced to the public that he is getting married so journalists received the
information and now they are interested to know how true are the rumors that he
is divorcing his husband ,all he had to do was to confirm if it is true or not.
Instead he advocated violence towards the journalists.
The primary responsibility of a journalist
is to report news truthfully as much as possible as stipulated in the codes of
conduct, accurately and fairly. According to my view the journalist afforded
Somizi a fair chance to state his side of the story instead he attacked her.
The position Somizi finds himself in is
that of a public figure, his role in the society is to bring peace and
influence people to act in an acceptable way and, he should have known that as
a public figure your right to privacy is limited on the bases that the public
always want to know what is happening in your life so our journalists must do
their job, which is to seek the truth and clarity on issues and confirm rumors
because that’s how journalists make news. Somizi must never behave or think
that he is untouchable, the public has the right to know about his life and he
is unlikely to succeed on lawsuits regarding privacy related matters.
According to news24 Somizi admitted that he
was wrong by sharing the private contact information of the journalist but he
is not willing to apologize and he is not going to, which directly tells us
that he has no morals and no respect for other people’s rights.
(500 words)
