The ruling was
made in the Equality Court earlier on Wednesday.
Attempts to get
comments from the EFF in response to the judgment were unanswered.
The remarks
referred to were made by Malema during the EFF’s 3rd Provincial Peoples
Assembly, which was held in the Western Cape on October 16, 2022.
The court found
that the statements constituted an exhortation to kill white males who had
participated in an incident on November 9, 2020, at the Brackenfell High School
during which EFF members were involved in a violent confrontation between
members of a residents’ group and the police.
In an excerpt
from Malema’s nearly two-hour speech in 2022, he had said: “You went to a
school here to protest the other time, and you were beaten by white people, and
there is a white man who is visible on camera. If I were to ask you, what have
you done in terms of follow-up, after being beaten by that white guy, why have
you not, as a revolutionary organisation, followed up on that guy, him alone,
to check that guy in an isolated space and attend to the guy properly? What
type of revolutionaries get beaten, and they don’t have a follow-up?
“Tell that
white man to try me. I’ll come many times here in the Western Cape, appearing
(in) a court case, because no white man is going to beat me up and (I) call
myself a revolutionary the following day. You must never be scared to kill. A
revolution demands that at some point, there must be killing because the
killing is part of a revolutionary act […] Why are you scared? That anything
that stands in the way of the revolution, it must be eliminated in the best
interest of the revolution, and we must never be scared to do that,” Malema had
said.
The EFF said
the ruling was a distortion of history and philosophy and trampled on freedom
of speech.
"We note
the Court’s ruling as an attack on the democratic space and the right to
articulate revolutionary politics. The language of revolution cannot be
sanitised to comfort the sensitivities of those who continue to enjoy the
fruits of colonial dispossession and have never experienced racial violence
whatsoever. The real violence is the daily reality of landlessness,
unemployment, and racism that black people endure," said the party.
The Democratic
Alliance (DA) and controversial lobby groups AfriForum has welcomed the Western
Cape Equality Court’s decision to find EFF leader Julius Malema guilty of hate
speech.
DA leader John
Steenhuisen said that the judgment affirms that no one, regardless of their
position or political office, is above the law.
"Political
leaders have a responsibility to foster nation building and social cohesion,
not to destroy and divide. Hate speech has no place in our society, especially
at a time when our nation requires urgent collective effort to address poverty,
unemployment, and inequality," he said.
Steenhuisen
said the party will be exploring further action that can be taken to enforce
serious consequences against Malema's hate speech.
"South
Africa’s Constitution protects freedom of expression, but it draws a clear line
where speech incites hatred, discrimination, or violence. Julius Malema has
repeatedly crossed that line. A political leader who incites mass murder, is
not normal, nor permissible," he added.
Ernst van Zyl,
Head of Public Relations at AfriForum, the judgment confirms that Malema and
the EFF are extremists that incite violence against minorities and spread a
message of racial hatred.
“This judgment,
alongside the UK government refusing Malema a visa due to his violent,
extremist rhetoric, as well as the US State department sounding the alarm over
the EFF’s incitement of violence against minority groups, casts a shameful
shadow on Ramaphosa and the ANC’s continued refusal to condemn Malema and “Kill
the Boer” in no uncertain terms,” added Van Zyl. IOL
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