Wednesday, 5th December 2007 at 10:15 am

5 FM DJ accused of blasphemy

South African 5 FM DJ Gareth Cliff is at the centre of yet another outrage about a comment he has made on the air. Several e-mails are currently in circulation demanding that the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) takes him off the air.
This time, he is being accused of blasphemy.

Referring to a news report of the Teddy Teacher Gillian Gibbons, who had been arrested in the Sudan for naming a teddy bear Mohammed, Gareth said: “Blasphemy should not be a crime. If God is great, why would he be so easily offended by what a mortal man says? If God has such an ego, then he must be petty.”

Following the flurry of e-mails and complaints, the SABC has called a tribunal at the Broadcasting Complaints Commission in Johannesburg tomorrow morning. It will be open to the public. However, the SABC stands by Gareth and believes that his comment has been taken out of context.

Even though we aren’t particularly big fans of Gareth’s, we have to agree with the SABC this time. (This time, because as you’ll recall, he has been in hot water because of on-air comments before.)

We are rather baffled that some South Africans so selectively tend to forget that freedom of speech is part of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Especially when they are faced with comments made about religion - which they often take out of context because they are so blinded by their own self-righteousness.

Take the case of Deon Maas. Last month, Deon, who used to be a columnist at the Afrikaans Sunday paper Rapport, lost his job after writing a column about Satanism. Ironically, he was exercising his right to freedom of speech by merely making the point that everyone has a right to practice their own religion - even satanists. A massive text messaging campaign was launched by some of the more narrow-minded readers to boycott the paper.

We wonder why all those complainers are so quiet when it comes to issues that affect all of us, like crime, or the petrol price which went up again with 45c per litre this morning? Where were the frenzied text messages commanding us to boycott the petrol stations?

Additional reading: Gareth accused of blasphemy - News24.