EFF condemns South African Human Rights Commission Acting CEO Chantal Kisoon for her racist remarks and calls for her removal

26 February 2023

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) condemns in the strongest terms the racist remarks by the Acting CEO of the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) Chantal Kisoon, who referred to senior managers at the institution as "black babies".

In an act that was testament to the prevailing culture of institutionalised racism at the SAHRC, Kisoon referred to senior managers as "black babies" during a strategic planning session of the Commission on the 23rd of February 2023, revealing that racism is endemic at an institution that ought to promote racial equality.

The acts of Kisoon are not only racist, but confirm to us that the South African Human Rights Commission thrives through infantilising black people, undermining their intelligence and treating them as inferior and incapable.

It is telling that this is the attitude of such a high ranking official of an institution that has recently been weaponised by the far-right in South Africa, to pursue the EFF for making historical assessments on the conditions confronting black people in this country.

It is the very same Human Rights Commission that threatened to take the EFF President and Commander in Chief to court for accurately assessing the volatile race-relations in South Africa, which are defined by inequality and land dispossession. This very Commission cited that the remarks by the CIC at the Western Cape Provincial People's Assembly in 2022, were incitement to violence.

Their presumptive logic, which they borrowed from the racist Afriforum, was that African people are of so low intellectual capacity, that they would mistake a political address as an incitement to murder.

Kisoon's comment therefore reveals the perception of black people which is held at high levels within the Human Rights Commission, which is that black people lack the mental fortitude to comprehend basic instructions because we possess the mental capacity of babies.

It is an institution whose Chairperson is a former Apartheid prosecutor and magistrate by the name of Bongani Majola, who was part of the cover-up of the racial assault by Springboks rugby player Eben Etzebeth in Langebaan in 2019.

This very same Commission is yet to release the report into the July Unrest Hearings, which shed light on the murder of African people en masse in 2021 through racial profiling and targeting in Phoenix, Durban.

Kisoon is a confirmation of why all of these clear cut instances of violence emanating from racism have never been justly concluded by the South African Human Rights Commission, yet speculative logic by a right-wing organisation which was dismissed by the Equality Court, is entertained.

There is a need for a complete reform of the South African Human Rights Commission, and this begins with the removal of the Acting CEO with immediate effect. The EFF commends the staff for exposing this vile racist and encourages more employees to expose the shenanigans happening at the Commission.

Kisoon must resign with immediate effect and an inquiry through Parliament must be established on the leadership composition of the Commission and how they set criteria for priority cases brought before them.

Issued by Sinawo Thambo, National Spokesperson, EFF, 26 February 2023