Equality Court rules Julius Malema's remarks as hate speech

The Equality Court has ruled that remarks made by EFF President Julius Malema in relation to an incident at Brackenfell High School constituted hate speech, and demonstrated a clear intention to incite harm and promote or propagate hatred. 

The ruling was made in the Equality Court on Wednesday.

Attempts to get comments from the EFF in response to the judgment were unanswered at the time of going to print. 

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 Brackenfell High School during which EFF members were involved in a violent confrontation between members of a residents’ group and the police.

The catalyst for the confrontation was that a matric dance was cancelled in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

It was alleged that the parents of one of the children arranged for the function to be held at a wine farm, and invitations were sent to staff and learners. 

However, the father of one of the learners alleged in a YouTube video that the event was held for white scholars only.

As a result of these allegations and other social media posts, EFF members held a protest at the school, as they considered this to be an instance of racist behaviour. 

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?"

Following this, the matter was reported to the South African Human Rights Commission, which, litigated alongside Dante van Wyk who was identified as the man who was the subject of threats contained in the statements.

On Wednesday, Equality Court Judge Mark Sher said the remarks made by Malema were found to violate the Equality Act, constituting hate speech, contrary to the provisions of Section 10, as they demonstrated a clear intention to incite harm and to promote or propagate hatred. 

He said a declaratory order to this effect must be issued.

Reflecting on the excerpt from the speech by Malema, Judge Sher said members were “adjured to ‘follow up’ on ‘the racist’ who had beaten them, as racism was violence and violence could only be ended by violence, not any other ‘necessary means’: a racist was a violent person and should therefore be treated as such”.

Defending the remarks made, in their supplementary answering affidavit, Malema and the EFF as respondents said the SAHRC and Van Wyk had “cherry-picked” isolated statements from the speech, which were “taken out of context”.

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