It is now, long ago. So, allow me to recap by cobbling together bits from the internet. In her first issue on September 29, 1995, Caitlin, having first asked a reporter to get the reaction of the police, ran a front-page report about a gang of youths terrorising Maun.
Because the local station commander had been unable either to confirm or deny the report, the published story had to be sprinkled with the occasional safety-first word, ‘allegedly. On January 19, 1996, however, three months after her story had appeared, a CID officer arrested Caitlin charging her with publishing “a false report which was likely to cause fear and alarm to the public” - contrary to Section 59 of the Penal Code. Nothing then happened despite six police appearances, until December 1997, when facing a two-year prison sentence, her trial was set for May 1998. Then without prior warning the case was dramatically dropped - the Attorney General implicity conceding that there never had been any evidence against her. So why was she charged? Mmegi, suggested at the time that it was straight forward victimisation because everyone in Maun knew that a gang of boys terrorised the village. The real problem, some speculated, was the series of articles on the government’s removal of indigenous Bushmen from the Kalahari, which she published in the Advertiser in those three subsequent months. If such speculation is correct, and if there was never justification for prosecution. the assumption has to be that anyone involved with newspapers can be charged under Section 59 although for an entirely different ‘offence’. Because the Caitlin Davies saga demonstrated how Section 59 can be ruthlessly deployed to harass but with no intention to take to court and convict, I suggest that everyone should be aware that this devilish trap is still there, waiting to be sprung. Most concerned should be the owners of every newspaper, newspaper editors, news reporters, columnists and cartoonists although the latter is the most difficult to charge although being able to register hammer blows far beyond the capability of mere scribes. It may not happen. It probably won’t happen but as Caitlin Davies showed, it could happen.
