Retirement, Tutu style
Archbishop Desmond Tutu speaks on stage during the seventh annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative at the Sheraton New York Hotel on Sept. 21, 2011, in New York City.
For a man who has retired from public life, Desmond Tutu has maintained a remarkably high profile of late.
Last month he compared the ruling African National Congress (ANC) government to South Africa’s apartheid-era white rulers after his friend the Dalai Lama was refused a visa to attend Tutu’s 80th birthday party.
“As we prayed for the downfall of the apartheid government, we will pray for the downfall of the government that misrepresents us,” he raged.
On Tuesday he slammed a new media law, dubbed the Secrecy Bill, which was overwhelmingly passed by Parliament this afternoon.
Tutu described the Bill as “insulting” and said it might be used to block investigative reporting and intimidate potential whistle-blowers. In a statement he said the law would make “the state answerable only to the state.”
As Parliamentarians voted 229-107 in favor of the restrictive legislation, editors covering the debate staged a walkout joining other colleagues who, dressed in black, were holding a protest outside the building in Cape Town.
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