𝗜𝗡𝗡𝗦𝗖𝗢𝗥 𝘃𝘀. 𝗥𝗨𝗧𝗘𝗡𝗗𝗢 𝗧𝗔𝗞𝗘 𝗗𝗢𝗪𝗡 𝗢𝗥𝗗𝗘𝗥 𝗝𝗨𝗗𝗚𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧.

Innscor vs Rutendo take down order court case

Yesterday, we finally received the judgment from Judge Makume, following nine days of deliberations on Innscor's court application filed on August 20th, 2024, in which they sought a court order compelling me to remove articles and videos posted after the contempt appeal.

In this judgment, the judge granted Innscor the take-down order they requested but also allowed for an automatic appeal, which effectively paused the requirement for me to remove my articles until the appeal process is complete.

Similar to the contempt hearing, we believe that Innscor has not demonstrated how my videos and articles are false or defamatory. Additionally, the judge also did not make an effort to determine whether the content he is ordering to be taken down is indeed defamatory and not of public interest. Hence, we are appealing the ruling in the Supreme Court.

From the current judgments we’ve received from the lower courts in South Africa (High Court), it appears that I am not just being prohibited from publishing lies and falsehoods about Innscor, but I’m being coerced to TOTALLY stop writing ANYTHING, even if it is factual or exposes wrongdoing by Innscor. This is a blatant violation of my journalistic rights and my constitutional right to free speech.

Interestingly, there is a relevant case—Zunaid Motti vs. Amabungane—where Zunaid Motti was awarded a gag order ex parte against Amabungane on June 1, 2023. As we have done with Innscor, the journalists appealed to the Supreme Court, and Judge Sutherland invalidated the gag order, calling it the most egregious abuse of court process and a war on journalism.

Given the similarities between the Zunaid Motti and Amabungane case and my situation with Innscor, where Innscor is attempting to gag me from exposing its internal workings and illegal activities in Zimbabwe, why hasn’t the court provided me, as a journalist, similar protection from this attack on journalism and truth?

Why hasn’t the court recognized that Innscor’s attempt to gag a journalist and whistleblower from using facts to expose their wrongdoing is an egregious abuse of court process and war on journalists?

Is it because I am a Black Zimbabwean journalist opposing a white corporation whose illegal activities in Zimbabwe primarily harm the much despised Zimbabweans and not South Africans? Or is it that some South African judges in lower courts lack the competence to navigate complex and nuanced issues such as balancing public interest in a foreign country, determining what constitutes defamation, deciding whether it’s defamation for a journalist to expose a corporation’s criminal activities, and making a determination on what South African courts have jurisdiction over?

It is starting to seem like the purpose of these rulings against me by South African High Court judges is not to protect Innscor from defamation that could irreparably damage its reputation, but rather to strip me of my journalistic rights and the right to whistleblow against Innscor’s crimes that prejudice Zimbabweans, to shield Innscor from accountability.

Moreover, why would the South African High Court try to gag a journalist from whistleblowing on crimes committed by a Zimbabwean company in Zimbabwe, especially when the write-ups that the judges are asking the journalist to take down have already prompted the Zimbabwean government to start tightening our GMO laws to protect human health amid a rising cancer pandemic and to safeguard the environment? This clearly illustrates that the impacted government [the Zimbabwean government, which has to deal with the worst cancer death rate in the world] has acknowledged the efficacy of the insights I as a journalist have published and used them to craft food laws to protect our national interests.

In turn, disregarding the importance of my write-ups in improving Zimbabwean food laws to address an exploding cancer pandemic, a South African judge has decided that the information being used by a foreign government to safeguard its national interests, must be blanketly removed from the internet, potentially prejudicing Zimbabwe’s national interests by depriving it of important written insights.

So, is this simply a case of bad judgment, or is there something more sinister at play?

Finally, by making these questionable decisions, are these judgments not effectively creating new case law that prohibits any journalist -in this case a foreign hrounalist- from exposing wrongdoing by white-owned corporations in Africa? Is this not neo-colonialism by gavel in place of the gun?

Written by Rutendo Matinyarare, Chairman of ZASM.

https://www.iamrutendo.online/post/ec0a8aab