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Today, as Parliament votes the Secrecy Bill through the National Assembly without heeding widespread calls for the Bill to be redrafted, we take to the streets once again.

We call on all MPs to adhere to the Constitution, follow their consciences, listen to their people, and to vote against the Minister of State Security’s Secrecy Bill!

In a series of coordinated actions across the country, communities and organisations within the Right2Know campaign today gather outside Parliament in Cape Town outside ANC constituency offices in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Veereniging, outside the Hector Pieterson Memorial in Soweto, and outside the Durban City Hall.

We are speaking out!
We are speaking out against secrecy. We are speaking out against attempts to silence whistleblowers, journalists, researchers, community activists and members of the public. We are speaking out against attempts by a shadowy security cluster in government to bolster its powers to control the flow of information between government and the people. We are speaking out against Minister of State Security Siyabonga Cwele’s vicious attacks on communities who oppose the Secrecy Bill. We are speaking out against the ANC’s decision to renege on promises for proper public consultation.

We gather in the streets and in our communities as a civil society coalition made up of service delivery activists, social justice movements, faith-based organisations, research institutes, students, academics, and members of the public. We reject the Secrecy Bill as an attempt to clamp down on the free flow of information and undermine our right to know!

We are disappointed that ANC members of Parliament have accepted the Minister of State Security’s Secrecy Bill! In doing so they have betrayed the principles of open government and transparency that the ANC once stood for.

We have won the argument, if not this battle. The Right2Know Campaign will continue to challenge the Secrecy Bill up to the Constitutional Court. We will continue to fight for access to information in every corner of the country - until the right to know is won!