It is understood that the University of the Free State’s security services cited supposed security concerns when it made the call on Wednesday to call off a talk on the bookThe panel discussion was due to be held at the UFS campus on Thursday 23 May in conjunction with its business school, the Association for Certified Fraud Examiners , book retailer Exclusive Books and Penguin Random House, the publisher of the book penned by investigative journalist Pieter-Louis Myburgh.
The cancellation of the event is the third instance in which a scheduled launch event for the book has been disrupted or prohibited from taking place.at an Exclusive Books branch in Sandton City in early April, apparent ANC Youth League members and supporters of ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule disrupted the event to such an extent that it had to be cancelled.
The UFS’s decision to bar next week’s event from taking place comes in the same month in which media institutions and journalists the world over celebrated World Press Freedom Day.“ Penguin Random House said in a statement that it was stunned that UFS had cancelled the public book event, which had been advertised for some time.