MBABANE: Students from William Pitcher Teachers College will on Monday march to the State controlled Times of eSwatini offices in protest against an alleged false treasonous article implicating them in a plot to sabotage the State.
Speaking to this Swaziland News, Bheka Mabuza, the Students Representative Council(SRC) President said as William Pitcher students, they first engaged the Times demanding evidence to substantiate the allegations, however, the newspaper failed to produce the evidence.
“We tried to engage the Times demanding evidence to substantiate the allegations as they did not even bother to contact us to state our side of the story, they failed to produce evidence. They alleged that some first year students went to the summer school at Piet Retief and we asked them to at least produce the names of the students but they failed. We then asked the newspaper to then publicly withdraw the false article in the front page and they promised to do so this Sunday but they didn’t withdraw”, he said.
The SRC President said following the alleged false article, police were now regularly patrolling their College and warned that William Pitcher was not a Police College.
Questions were sent to Martin Dlamini, the Managing editor of the Times via his WhatsApp number however, he had not responded at the time of of compiling this report.
This publication, armed with documentary evidence and leaked emails reported that some State controlled journalists proposed to do a Public Relations(PR) project for the State targeting pro-democracy activists with false information.
It would be the first time in the history of the eSwatini media for citizens to organize a protest march against a newspaper over an alleged false article.
Under normal circumstances, journalists are expected to write truthful articles based on facts substantiated with evidence.
William Pitcher students to protest against Times alleged false article.