REPLY BY CITY PRESS TO COMPLAINT TO THE PRESS OMBUDSMAN BY LARA JOHNSTONE
1. Ms Johnstone says that it is incorrect to refer to a group or religion she calls Radical Honesty, of whom she is the only member in South Africa, as “rightwing” and to say of her attempted intervention at the trial of the so-called “Reitz Four” as an attempt to “scupper” the trial.
2. In her application to intervene as amicus curiae in the Reitz trial Ms Johnstone:
a. Says that “the Liberation Struggle could not have been considered a ‘just war’ … when Apartheid had raised poor black living standards to the highest in Africa”;
b. says that “Apartheid was not a crime Against Humanity”, but a just war for Afrikaner Demographic Survival”;
c. endorses the concept of “white refugees” in South Africa;
d. renounces the Truth and Reconciliation Commission;
e. advocates “cultural groups” and “cultural laws”;
f. sought admission as amicus in the Reitz matter on the basis that she was admitted as an amicus in an unrelated and undecided Constitutional Court case, which “may have affected” the court’s decision-making in the Reitz matter; and
g. made it clear that she regarded the Reitz accused to be victims rather than wrongdoers.
3. In her application to the Constitutional Court, to which she refers in seemingly all her public communications, and specifically also in her Reitz-application, Ms Johnstone:
a. Defends her use of the word “kaffir” in the South African context and mentions that she has been previously convicted of crimen iniuria in this regard;
b. Approves of a source document entitled “New South Africa’s “Kaffirs” AKA “Criminals”;
c. Lashes out in prejudicial terms against the media, government and black people; and
d. Uses race repeatedly as a prominent concept in her world view.
4. Ms Johnstone brought her (unsuccessful) application in the Reitz matter at the moment of sentencing, resulting in the brief postponement of and last-minute decisions in a highly-publicised, race-related criminal trial.
5. Ms Johnstone also complains that she was not approached for comment. But her abortive attempt at intervention in the Reitz matter was in itself a public event, on which City Press simply reported.
6. Consequently, Ms. Johnstone’s complaints should be dismissed.