HRC should take action against pres. Jacob Zuma

5 April 2016

The time has come for the Human Rights Commission (HRC) to fearlessly fulfil its mandate and call president Jacob Zuma to order over his racially divisive comments which boils down to hate speech, Adv. Anton Alberts, the FF Plus’ parliamentary spokesperson on communication, said.

Adv. Alberts says the FF Plus yesterday laid a second complaint of hate speech against president Zuma following his racist comments the past weekend at Melmoth, where he had made comments which essentially translate into white people not being trustworthy and that black people should vote for each other.

 According to Adv. Anton Alberts, Dr. Pieter Mulder, leader of the Freedom Front Plus, accused the HRC in January last year of double standards, after it had not responded to a complaint of hate speech which had been laid against the EFF in 2014 already about their election banners.

The banners, which had been widely distributed on social media platforms, amongst others, read: A revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate”, and “Honeymoon is over for white people in South Africa”. The HRC has to date not responded to this complaint.

Adv. Alberts said that in his complaint to the HRC he wanted to state it clearly that the complaint is being submitted on behalf of “all peace-loving people in South Africa” and he requested the HRC to fearlessly fulfil its mandate in the same manner as the PP.

“The HRC is a Chapter 9 institution just like the PP, which has a constitutional obligation to protect the constitutional democracy of South Africa. It was to date unfortunately the experience of the FF Plus that this has not been done properly,” Adv. Alberts said.

Issued by Adv. Anton Alberts, FF Plus parliamentary spokesperson: Communications, 5 April 2016