South African court finds radical politician guilty of hate speech
Malema has been at the centre of tensions between Washington and Pretoria and featured prominently in a video that President Donald Trump showed in a meeting with his counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa in May to back baseless claims of a "white genocide" in South Africa.
Julius Malema is the firebrand leader of the small opposition and populist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party. (AFP)
By AFP .
Journalists @New Vision
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JOHANNESBURG - A South African court on Wednesday found radical left politician Julius Malema guilty of hate speech for telling his supporters at a 2022 rally that they should "never be scared to kill".
Malema, the firebrand leader of the small opposition and populist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, has long been criticised by South Africa's white minority for his radical rhetoric and his singing of the anti-apartheid song "Kill the Boer, kill the farmer", which some say incites anti-white violence.
He has been at the centre of tensions between Washington and Pretoria and featured prominently in a video that President Donald Trump showed in a meeting with his counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa in May to back baseless claims of a "white genocide" in South Africa.
At a rally in 2022, Malema referred to a fight two years prior between members of his EFF party and white parents at a school accused of holding a whites-only dance party, telling his supporters that "killing is part of a revolutionary act" and "you must never be scared to kill".
Seized by the South African Human Rights Commission, the Equality Court ruled Wednesday that Malema's remarks "constituted hate speech... as they demonstrated a clear intention to incite harm and to promote or propagate hatred".
The remarks were an "exhortation to kill white males who had participated" in the 2020 incident and to respond violently to racist behaviour, the ruling said.
Malema's EFF party said it would appeal the judgment, arguing the court's interpretation "strips the speech of its political, historical and ideological context".
"The court ignored the nature of the occasion which was a political assembly where revolutionary theory, strategy, and history are discussed and treated the speech as if it were a direct operational command to commit murder," it said in a statement.
South Africa's second-largest party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), which strongly opposes the EFF, welcomed the ruling as "a victory against Malema's campaign to incite racial division and hatred in our society".
"South Africa's reputation on the global stage is at risk when such hatred is condoned or ignored," the party said in a statement.