Cape Town - State Security Minister Siyabonga Cwele on Thursday warned media to stop publishing photographs and footage of President Jacob Zuma's home at Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal.
He said this posed an unacceptable security breach under the National Key Points Act that would not be tolerated in any democracy.
“It is important that also to just send a caution that we have got laws - yes, some of them we will have to amend - but the continuing of flaunting of these pictures in a place which has been declared by the minister of police as a national key point is also not correct. It is a breach of law.”
Cwele was addressing a post-Cabinet briefing dominated by the tussle between government and Public Protector Thuli Madonsela over her impending report on the use of public funds to upgrade security at Nkandla.
“In terms of the National Key Points Act, no one including those in the media, is allowed to take images and publicise images even pointing where the possible security breaches are,” he said.
Cwele said he was issuing a request, but the government would consider those who ignored it to be breaking the law.
“At this stage we are just appealing. We are appealing to the South African public. It is not done anywhere, no country does this. We have not seen the images of the White House showing where the security features are. It is not done in any democracy, in any country...
“Let's respect the laws at the moment. We are not supposed to do what we are seeing in the media at this stage,” he added.
“We are just advising you not to do so because if you continue to do so, you will be breaching the law.”
Sapa