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The Young Communist League of South Africa [uFasimba] supports the South African Communist Party [SACP] media Transformation Campaign fully. As the YCLSA we have noted that in reaction to the campaign the Naspers monopoly through its Media24 is out to tarnish the image of SACP General Secretary Comrade Blade Nzimande and other leaders of the Party including the current ANC MP and Chairperson of the Parliamentary Communications Portfolio Committee Comrade Joyce Moloi-Moropa who is SACP National Treasurer.

Naspers' Media24 titles Die Rapport and City Press and its digital news platform News24 are being used to push this anti-communist smear campaign which is also part of Naspers' 2017 media coverage strategy. The YCLSA rejects the contents especially the lies peddled by Die Rapport and also published by Media24 through the City Press and other propaganda platforms aimed at tarnishing the image of SACP leaders and that of the Party as a whole which boarders on defamation.

The YCLSA wishes to place it on record that communists are entitled to exercising their constitutional rights. The first and last law in this country that banned communists and denied them human rights including economic, political and public participation rights is the Suppression of Communism Act of 1950 which was repealed in the 1990s after decades of struggle. Naspers was the ideological mouthpiece of apartheid which it served as a propaganda vanguard. As the YCLSA we will not allow Naspers to take our country back.

Our post-apartheid, democratic constitution has established state institutions such as the police and the courts to deal with violations of the law. As the YCLSA we will not allow Naspers propaganda machinery and its political collaborators including hidden operatives to undermine our democratic achievements.

They must go to the police and the courts if they have any case relating to violations of the law! We reserve all our constitutional rights as the YCLSA to take Naspers' apartheid-type anti-communist propaganda including baseless allegations head-on. As the YCLSA we will unleash everything at our disposal as far as it is necessary within the framework of our democratic dispensation to tackle Naspers and its lies.

As the YCLSA we are also aware that Naspers is collaborating with parties such as the DA which is in its essential content a party of white privilege. Some of the questions that Naspers through its Media24 titles has asked the SACP and SACP General Secretary Cde Blade Nzimande as the Minister of Higher Education and Training were later asked by the DA in Parliament as they are in their essence.

The strategy now includes that the DA must take its cue from Naspers' Media24 titles and digital platform News24 to push Naspers' media propaganda politically. Thee YCLSA will stand up to the task of confronting this axis of apartheid and white privilege and its hidden conspirators without fail.

We urge the SACP to stay the course of its Media Transformation Campaign to de-monopolise ownership and ensure diversity of perspective with focus on the overwhelming majority of the historically oppressed and exploited working class. This campaign must bring down Naspers monopoly in the media and reclaim the SABC, our public broadcaster, from its exploitation by Naspers' Multichoice.

The YCLSA stands by the following media transformation objectives as covered by the SACP in its Red October Campaign rally statement held yesterday at eMalahleni in Mpumalanga Province as delivered by General Secretary Comrade Blade Nzimande.

Issued by the National Secretary of the YCLSA, Cde Mluleki Dlelanga