The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema has been given 10 days to retract statements made during a recent rally in the Western Cape.
The South African Human Rights Commission said it had served Malema with a written notice that if they did not retract and apologise for their unlawful statements, and assure that such would not happen again, the Commission would proceed to the Equality Court for relief.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, the commission threatened to take party leader Julius Malema and the EFF to the Equality Court within 10 days.
The commission found that Malema’s speech and some of the posters and banners displayed at the party’s Provincial People’s Assembly in the Western Cape last month “collectively, constitute incitement of violence, and hate speech”.
It also found that the speech and the banners may have constituted a possible transgression of other provisions in the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act.
“The Commission is of the view that certain parts of Mr Malema’s speech and some of the posters/banners displayed at the event as set above facie, individually and collectively, constitute incitement of violence, hate speech and possibly other transgressions of the Promotion of Unfair Discrimination Act, 4of 2000,” the SAHRC said in a statement.
According to the complaints received by the commission and corroborated by video recordings of the event, Malema, in reference to an incident at the Brackenfell High School last year and a footage of a white person “beating up” an EFF member, said the person should have been taken to an isolated space and “attended to…properly.”
Malema reportedly went on to tell EFF members that they must “not be afraid to kill” and that “killing is a revolutionary act”.
“Anything that stands in the way of the revolution must be eliminated. The EFF…is not a playground for racists and any racists that play next to the EFF and threatens to beat up the membership and the leadership of the EFF, that is the application to meet your maker with immediate effect.
“Violence can only be ended with violence, not any other necessary means,” Malema reportedly said.
Source: Sowetan Live, IOL, News24, The Citizen, image from Twitter: @Basoh_Mabaso