Politics
Broadcasting Commission Complaint against Presidential spokesperson, Bheki Khumalo and SAfm broadcaster, John Perlman, 15 December 2004

From: Charlene Smith, Johannesburg

URGENT MATTER

15 December 2004

I am lodging a complaint about a broadcast during John Perlman’s show on SAfm today between 8am and 9am. I switched on at around 8.35am in time to hear John Perlman, who was speaking to Bheki Khumalo, spokesperson for the president to comment on “the Charlene Smith matter.”
Khumalo responded that –and I don’t have exact words, but words to this effect, that the president had taken umbrage at an article I had written which said that “blacks” raped and that they were savage beasts who could not keep their penisses in their pants, or words to that effect. I have NEVER in 30 years of journalism written anything vaguely similar, indeed those are words President Thabo Mbeki quoted an African American professor as having written. I will send the article I wrote where never once was race mentioned, and too the first words I wrote after I was raped where I said rape was not about race, or about what men did, it was about what sick individuals do. Over five and a half years I have maintained that position.

I tried to phone into the show but the lines rang and clicked off.

Khumalo patently and outrageously lied as material I will submit will show.

Perlman as a seasoned radio broadcaster who has known me personally and as a journalist for many years did not intervene to say that he knew that was not true. As is now wide public knowledge with the quote in question – that from a black American professor quoted by President Thabo Mbeki – having been widely disseminated in every newspaper and radio station and television station in this country and abroad in publications, radio and TV stations from the NY Times to the Economist, to Montreal radio to others. All of which have made it clear those words were not attributable to me – as the president initially made it seem as though they were in an address to parliament (using the cover of parliamentary privilege) and then gave the real source in his Letter from the President on the ANC website the very next day. Sources that Bheki Khumalo has access too and which as the presidential spokesperson he is required to be familiar with; and which John Perlman as a senior daily broadcaster and commentator is also familiar with and is required to be familiar with.

Perlman allowed the defamatory statement to stand, and did not say, as he did to a later caller who quoted Archbishop Desmond Tutu, “I do not ever recall him saying anything of that nature.”

Perlman is well acquainted with my work, with the fact that I vigorously opposed apartheid as a journalist and as an activist; that my forte is in human rights and in combating injustice, prejudice and oppression whether with regard to race, gender, sexual violence, HIV and AIDS or any area where rights are under threat. I have developed an international reputation as an activist and vocal human rights activist. I am a multi award winning journalist winning awards here – the Ruth First Award for Courageous Journalism, CNN Features award, SABC/ Shoprite Checkers Woman of the Year: Media etc.. and many others in South Africa and internationally. Khumalo as a spokesperson for various government departments is also well acquainted with my work, his statement was deliberate defamation, disinformation and an attempt to besmirch my name and reputation by fomenting deliberate lies.

I have read through the BCC code and believe Khumalo and Perlman variously or together broke the BCC code in terms of 16.1; 16.2; 34.1; 34.2 a, b and c; 34.3; 34.4; 34.5; 35.2; 36.1; 36.2.

Such defamation is an attempt to not only besmirch me but to ruin my credibility and acts as a deterrent to ongoing work as a journalist in South Africa and in South Africa’s volatile climate puts me at physical risk from attacks from those who are not acquainted with the truth and believe the most senior government spokesperson and one of SA’s most senior and respected journalists on South Africa’s largest English language national radio station.

Because I believe this matter is so serious and because I believe it enhances my danger to attacks whether physical, verbal, written or in any other way (I receive numerous threats and written attacks – through articles published every time the president attacks me, and too many newspaper editors in South Africa who either never, or are rarely prepared to use my material especially on issues around HIV and AIDS and sexual violence despite me having a strong, positive international reputation on these issues – because of the likelihood of presidential retailiation.) I would like an urgent hearing on this matter.

I attach the necessary documents.

I would like a public apology in writing and broadcast from Mr Khumalo and from Mr Perlman and an opportunity as enshrined in 36.1 and 36.2 to be given equal time to state my case on SAfm.

Yours sincerely

CHARLENE SMITH

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