Sakeliga rejects EFF incitement and violence 

7 September 2020

Business group Sakeliga has requested the National Commissioner of the South African Police Services (SAPS) to act firmly against threats and violence by the EFF and its supporters in the current Clicks affair. The SAPS has an obligation under constitutional and international law to prevent violence, as held by the Constitutional Court (Carmichele v Minister of Safety and Security and another, 2001).  

Recognising the EFF’s attempt at inciting violence under the guise of free speech, Sakeliga earlier this year assisted the Constitutional Court as amicus curiae. Judgment in the matter is still pending but should have important implications for the ability of law-enforcement to act against criminal incitement.  

“There is a distinction between free speech and peaceful demonstrations on the one hand and incitement and violence on the other, and the EFF has decidedly crossed it,” says Piet le Roux, CEO of Sakeliga. “As soon as a demonstrator or party commits incitement or threats of violence and intimidation – or further violence ranging from preventing customers and employees access to stores or destroying property and harming persons – that demonstrator or party ceases to act peacefully and instead acts criminally.”  

“In contrast to the EFF and Mr. Malema, who wanted to have incitement to criminal activity in the case of land occupations protected as free speech, Sakeliga argued in the Constitutional Court to uphold law-enforcement's ability to act against incitement. Incitement to commit crimes is not, as Mr Malema apparently believes, something to be protected as free speech.” (Economic Freedom Fighters and Julius Malema v. Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development and National Director of Public Prosecutions.) 

“It would not be acceptable that a political party – nor any other organisation – be allowed scope to act criminally, by encouraging intimidation and other forms of violence against property and person. It would greatly complicate the work of government and the SAPS’s if the EFF were allowed to set a precedent that it may ‘shut down’ businesses or instruct – as if it had its own judicial, legislative, and executive branches – its structures and supporters to inflict its judgments, policies, and pronouncements on businesses and the public in general.” 

Issued by Piet le Roux, CEO: Sakeliga, 7 September 2020