AfriForum CEO scot-free re "Mugabe, go home!" posters at Union Buildings

The efforts of the Tshwane Metro Police in Pretoria to prosecute Kallie Kriel, CEO of AfriForum, for putting up posters on lampposts in the vicinity of the Union Buildings with the message "Mugabe, go home!", shortly before the presidential inauguration, has failed.  The State has decided to withdraw all charges against Kriel unconditionally.

This follows after Kriel submitted a representation to the State Prosecutor, in which he alleged that the prosecution against him was malignant and politically motivated.  Kriel also alleged that his constitutional right to freedom of speech had been curtailed unfairly; that AfriForum had followed all legal avenues to try and put a stop to Mugabe's visit to South Africa; that a violator of human rights such as Mugabe has no place visiting South Africa; and that the written versions of the fines handed to him (i.e. Kriel), were vague and confusing.

Kriel welcomed the State Prosecutor's decision to withdraw all charges against him.  According to Kriel, this decision once again confirmed that the aggressive manner in which Director Ndumiso Jaca of the Tshwane Metro Police had acted against AfriForum at the time of the incident, had been unfair and unjust.  "Jaca acted like Mugabe's police," Kriel added.

In Kriel's opinion, it is a bitter irony that a violator of human rights, namely Robert Mugabe, was welcomed with open arms in South Africa, while efforts were made to prosecute those who protested peacefully against this action.  "If anybody deserved to be prosecuted, it was Mugabe," Kriel said.

AfriForum's poster action was undertaken as protest against the fact that Mugabe had been invited to the presidential inauguration, while the Dalai Lama had been denied a visa to visit South Africa just a short while before.  "The fact that the red carpet was rolled out for Mugabe in South Africa, immediately after 18 activists had been arrested in Zimbabwe, sends a negative message to the world regarding the South African government's stance regarding human rights," Kriel stated.

Kriel also finds it ironic that the South African government recently relaxed visa requirements for Zimbabweans who are flooding into South Africa as a result of the Mugabe regime, while the cause of the problem, namely Robert Mugabe himself, is welcomed heartily in South Africa.

Statement issued by Kallie Kriel, CEO of AfriForum, June 17 2009 

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