Port Alfred journalists David Macgregor and Jon Houzet have denied any knowledge of a threatening letter sent to the Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, Gugile Nkwinti. This comes after police grilled the two scribes about the letter, containing obscene language, that is somehow linked to an incident in Kenton-on-Sea on 1 October.
Port Alfred journalists David Macgregor and Jon Houzet have denied any knowledge of a threatening letter sent to the Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, Gugile Nkwinti. This comes after police grilled the two scribes about the letter, containing obscene language, that is somehow linked to an incident in Kenton-on-Sea on 1 October.
Both journalists agreed that the threat should be investigated, but they were shocked at the way the detectives, Warrant Officer Dlamini and Sergeant Van Tonder, conducted themselves. The police officers, who refused to reveal their first names, told Macgregor and Houzet that they had come from the Central Detectives Unit in Pretoria to investigate the case.
Macgregor said the two did not at first explain what they were investigating, and only after the journalists had said there was nothing to investigate did the detectives reveal that they were investigating the threatening letter sent to the minister.
"The letter was allegedly posted from PE and – according to Dlamini – was clearly written by a white person because of the jargon used," said Macgregor. Dlamini told Houzet that there was a complaint against him for mishandling the minister at the Kenton-on-Sea community meeting where Houzet had asked Nkwinti about a local land deal. In the melee that followed, Houzet was reportedly manhandled by two African National Congress supporters. Nkwinti is from the Kenton area.
"I asked him if he meant physically, and he replied no, that the accusation was that I behaved unprofessionally as a journalist, that I had not given the minister a chance to answer questions. I told them it was a lie that the minister had not had ample opportunity to answer my questions and asked them if the police were now investigating alleged unprofessionalism by journalists," said Houzet in a statement to the South African National Editors Forum (Sanef).
Macgregor said that he was alarmed when Warrant Officer Dlamini referred to recent events in Mpumalanga: "Dlamini then mentioned ‘Mpumalanga’ and alleged ‘hits’ on people’s lives and said that this type of behaviour was now moving to the Eastern Cape. "He cited two recent deaths of local politicians, Thembile Bethe (who was apparently assassinated) and Doctor Myungula as a possible example," said Macgregor.
According to Houzet and Macgregor, the matter is now in the hands of the Avusa lawyers and Sanef. Mtobeli Mxotwa, Nkwinti's spokesperson, declined to comment on the issue and on the police’s threats to the journalists, saying that the matter is being handled by the police. "The issue of the threatening letter has been reported to the police, and it is now a police matter and we say that the law must take its course," said Mxotwa.
