Frustration over delays in 'cleanse the whites' Equality Court case
Cape Town - The Cape Town man who lodged a hate speech complaint against Gauteng government employee Velaphi Khumalo, over a Facebook post calling for South Africa to be cleansed of white people, is frustrated that the case has still not been heard after 18 months.
"It's almost intentionally delayed," said Daniel Amos on Tuesday, after hearing that the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) had been unable to trace Khumalo to serve him with papers to appear in court.
In January 2016, the Gauteng department of sports employee's Facebook page carried the post:
"I want to cleans this country of all white people. we must act as Hitler did to the Jews. I don’t believe any more that the is a large number of not so racist whit people . I’m starting to be sceptical even of those within our Movement the ANC. I will from today unfriend all white people I have as friends from today u must be put under the same blanket as any other racist white because secretly u all are a bunch of racist fuck heads. as we have already seen [all sic].''
It was made during a period of outrage over a post by KwaZulu-Natal woman Penny Sparrow, who had compared black people to monkeys in a rant about beach litter.
Last year, Sparrow was ordered to pay a R150 000 fine to the Adelaide and Oliver Tambo Foundation by the Equality Court sitting in Umzinto, after being found guilty of hate speech. She was also fined R5 000 in a plea bargain agreement at the Scottburgh Magistrate's Court in September 2016 on a charge of crimen injuria.
Khumalo was swiftly disciplined by the department he worked for at the time, after he pleaded guilty. The department found that he had conducted himself in an "improper, disgraceful and unacceptable manner".
Amos was concerned that the case appeared to have stalled.
In response to questions, the SAHRC said the directions hearing in his matter had been set down for June 26, 2017, but that Khumalo had been untraceable and papers could not be served on him.
The directions hearing was postponed to July 20, in the hopes of finding him by then.
However, Khumalo contacted the commission on Monday, and it plans to proceed and serve the court papers on him.
Amos said that, in spite of the delays, he would do it all again.
Others who have been sanctioned over social media posts include Capetonian Matthew Theunissen, who posted over sports quotas, and Standard Bank economist Chris Hart.
Theunissen apologised and Hart left his job at Standard Bank.
In June, the Equality Court sitting in Johannesburg finally brought to a close a 2009 complaint against Cosatu's Bongani Masuku by the SA Jewish Board of Deputies.
He was found guilty of hate speech for threatening that Jewish South Africans would be targeted because of their support for Israel. He was ordered to apologise for the remarks made at the University of the Witwatersrand, and in various written communications.
