Veteran Journalist Karima Brown wins Court case against Julius Malema

Johannesburg –Veteran journo Karima Brown squares off with the EFF in the South Gauteng High Court . Karima challenged EFF head honcho Julius Malema in court on Monday over the publicising of her phone number in a tweet.

The tweet referred her as a ‘mole’ for the ANC. The attorney representing the EFF argued in Gauteng High in the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on Monday. He reiterated that the journalist and political commentator Brown did not conduct herself in a fair or professional manner in her criticism of the EFF.

“The journalist we are dealing with is one who is intent on having a registered political party deregistered. That is the context.

” When one is confronted with these kinds of utterances by a journalist, is one to sit idly by and not express concern in a WhatsApp message a journalist has put out?” Vuyani Ngalwana, SC, submitted to the court according to News 24.

EFF attorney Ngalwana quoted an opinion piece in The Citizen newspaper in which Brown asked if a political party that attacks woman journo ‘should be allowed to contest elections’.
He threw several instances into the spotlight of commentary in which the renowned journo was critical of the EFF ahead of her court war with the political party.

Ngalwana cited a message in an Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) media WhatsApp group in which she stated that she ‘wants to end the EFF’ and a programme in which she allegedly accused the EFF of race luring.

However, the apex of the case started when Brown erroneously sent an editorial brief to an EFF media WhatsApp group.It reads “Keep an eye out for this. Who are these elders? Are they all male and how are they chosen? Keep watching brief.”
Brown had mistakenly sent the EFF group a message meant for he journalist colleagues which instructed them to “keep watching brief” on an EFF event, a common journalistic term which refers to monitoring an ongoing news story.

The WhatsApp message was promptly deleted but before EFF leader Julius Malema managed to take a screenshot. Mr Malema posted on his personal Twitter profile (followed by 2.3 million followers at the time, in which he alleged that Brown was trying to send a mole to the EFF’s breakfast for the elderly.

The tweet posted by Malema disclosed Brown’s cell phone number without her permission.

The effects of the tweet were explosive. It was then a period of harassment, intimidation as well as death and rape threats.

On the other side, Mr Geoff Budlender was arguing on Brown’s behalf as her lawyer. He submitted that Malema’s conduct was in violation of the Electoral Act as it incited his Twitter followers to abuse and intimidate a journo.

“Malema’s conduct constitutes a contravention of the electoral code as he took no reasonable steps to ensure compliance with the Electoral Act , to make sure that journalists are not facing any harassment, intimidation, threats by political parties.

” We know for a fact that Brown is a journalist.He was asked to take steps to avoid this and he said ‘I won’t do it, ” Budlender argued.

Budlender acknowledged that Malema apologized to Brown during the media briefing on April 10, he argued that this was insufficient.

“The apology was to little, too late. Brown had already been harassed and intimidated for a month.It is only after the damage we done and they were faced with litigation that they sought to distance themselves from the conduct, ” he said.

Brown wants the court of law to find that EFF contravened parts of the electoral code and are seeking an apology via Twitter, the assessment of a fine of R100 000 as well as costs.

Budlender asked the court to handle the matter on an urgent basis because it was before the elections.

“This is a case about the functioning of our constitutional democracy. By its nature it is urgent. It is in the interests of justice that this matter is heard before the elections. Voters have a right to know about this before they vote, ” Budlender submitted.