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AfriForum’s years-long pressure campaign has finally bore fruit with the Equality Court in Cape Town ruling today that Julius Malema, Economic Freedom Fighters leader, was guilty of hate speech. This case follows after AfriForum and its members submitted a torrent of complaints to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) in 2022 regarding Malema’s statements during an EFF provincial meeting in the Western Cape.

When the case was lagging with no updates by 2023, AfriForum lodged a complaint with the SAHRC, demanding feedback on its progress. AfriForum also attended the court case as it was unfolding.

In 2022 Malema said at an EFF rally in the Western Cape that, “you [EFF supporters] must never be scared to kill” and that “a revolution demands that at some point there must be killing, because the killing is part of a revolutionary act”.

In his judgement, Judge Mark Sher stated that Malema singling out white males based on their race and calling for their murder in his speech is unacceptable. Sher continued: “When such a call comes from the leader of the then third (now fourth) largest political party in the country, it has the potential to incite racial violence on a large scale.” Sher found that Malema’s statements represented a clear intention to promote or propagate racial hatred and that the EFF “endorsed and supported” Malema’s hate speech and must also take responsibility for them.

According to Ernst van Zyl, Head of Public Relations at AfriForum, the Equality Court’s judgment confirms and underscores what most already know: Julius Malema and the EFF are extremists that incite violence against minorities and spread a message of racial hatred. “It is outrageous that the president of South Africa invited Malema to rejoin the ANC in 2018 and continues to treat him with kid gloves,” continues Van Zyl.

“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,” concludes Van Zyl.

Issued by AfriForum