AfriForum lays criminal charges against Thandiswa Mawisa 

10 May 2017

The civil rights organisation AfriForum laid criminal charges this afternoon at the Lyttelton police station against the person behind the Thandiswa Mawisa Facebook account. These charges pertain to several recent messages that she posted on Facebook which contain hate speech, words of intimidation and incitement to violence. She eventually even degraded to downloading a picture of another Facebook user’s daughter, which she then edited to make it appear as if the child was in a shooters cross hairs. The words “Bullet between the devil eyes” accompany the edited picture.

“Although AfriForum received hundreds of complaints regarding hate speech, intimidation, racism and incitement to violence on social media, we are shocked that an innocent child is dragged into the debate in such an awful manner. We therefore decided to hand in this affidavit immediately,” says Ernst Roets, Depurty CEO of AfriForum.

AfriForum requested the SAPS to verify the identity of the person behind the Thandiswa Mawisa account and to bring this person to justice. To assist in the process, AfriForum asked the Police to provide feedback on a regular basis and also offered any assistance the organisation might be able to provide.

“We have noticed an increasing trend in people who use social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to spew racism, make threats and incite violence. We sincerely hope that the Police will conduct a thorough investigation and punish those responsible. We invite the public to continue sending examples of racism, hate speech and incitement to violence to [email protected],” says Roets.

AfriForum is currently also exploring other means to help end racism, hate speech and other transgressions on social media.

Issued by Ernst Roets, Deputy CEO, AfriForum, 10 May 2017