South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) party has called for a boycott of the Sunday newspaper City Press, demanding that it remove an image of “The Spear,” a painting by artist Brett Murray depicting President Jacob Zuma in a Lenin pose with exposed genitalia, from its website.
City Press has refused to censor the image. In a May 18 column titled "The spear of the nation stays up," Editor-in-Chief Ferial Haffajee defended the paper’s decision as part of its commitment to the freedom of expression, which is enshrined in South Africa’s constitution in order to protect "art that pushes boundaries" and "journalism that upsets holy cows," she wrote.
"City Press covered an art exhibition, an interesting and remarkable exhibition that marks a renaissance in protest art, which we are tracking...To ask us now, as the ANC has done, to take down an image from our website is to ask us to participate in an act of censorship. As journalists worth our salt, we can’t."

















