Malema ‘hate speech’ ruling furore
Johannesburg - The South African Human Rights Commission ruling in favour of EFF leader Julius Malema might undermine some South Africans’ confidence in the ability of the body to judge clearly. This is the view of political analysts when reacting to the SAHRC’s ruling against several hate speech complaints made against Malema and other party leaders.
These included his 2016 remarks that the EFF was “not calling for the slaughtering of white people yet”, which sparked controversy, with him being accused of inciting violence against the white community. SAHRC chairperson Bongani Majola cautioned that freedom of speech would be endangered if the body was quick to deem robust and offensive speech as hate speech.
“Freedom of speech is one of those highly protected human rights, so we cannot willy nilly, on the feelings of the injured person, say it is hate speech,” he said. SAHRC senior researcher Shanelle van der Berg said although Malema’s utterances about “not wanting to slaughter white people for now” could be construed as hurtful by a white audience, the reasonable listener of the speech would have recognised that the topic of the speech was land reform, not the intention to harm white people.
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