Less than a week after the death of Nelson Mandela, Jacob Zuma has signed into law the Protection Of State Information Bill. Zuma would have inked the paper mere metres from the body of late President Nelson Mandela, who lies in state at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.

Zuma signed off the secrecy bill, which is now an act, under cover of all the Madiba news. Boo!

— Craig McKune (@CraigMcKune) December 12, 2013

In other words, the president of this country took cover under the 10 days of mourning he instituted in order to go all Voldemort

— Richard Poplak (@Poplak) December 12, 2013

Civic action group, Right2Know summarise why the Secrecy Bill is a problem:

The finalised NCOP version criminalises the public for possessing information that has already been leaked, protects Apartheid-era secrets, and still contains broad definitions of National Security that will in all likelihood be used to suppress legitimate disclosures in the public interest.

You can download and read the final version of the bill that has just been signed by Zuma, here.

Read a plain-language guide as to why this law is bad news for South Africa, here.

UPDATE: Woah! Woah! Just hold up, everybody. This looks like a false alarm.

As you’ll see from @Dariomilo‘s tweets, Act hasn’t been gazetted and may not have been signed. Parly issued the final Act but may have erred

— Murray Hunter (@muzhunter) December 12, 2013

Parliament erred in sending out the final act. We’ll update with more detail shortly.

UPDATE 2: Yep! False alarm. Parliament sent the “Act” out in error. The bill remains a bill, for now.

Parliament confirms #POSIB has not been signed into law… Relief for now, but it doesn’t mean it won’t happen before #Nkandla report

— Morne Esben (@Morne13) December 12, 2013

 But probably not for very much longer…

if South Africa’s parliament is distributing Secrecy Bill and calling it an “Act”, it must be very close to being signed, if not already

— Geoffrey York (@geoffreyyork) December 12, 2013

[Source : Twitter, R2K]