South African Human Rights Commission’s Equality Court proceedings regarding Economic Freedom Fighters social media posts

Wednesday, 16 September 2020

The South African Human Rights Commission (the SAHRC or the Commission) is instituting legal proceedings against the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in the Equality Court. The Commission commenced proceedings at the Equality Court on the 19th of August 2020 regarding content distributed by the EFF on 14 September 2019.

The EFF and Mr Malema distributed through the medium of Twitter and Facebook a video that contained a number of quotes from the late former president of Zimbabwe, Mr Robert Mugabe. The proceedings relate to four statements repeated on a video that that bore the EFF’s logo. Among the statements made were that “(t)he only white man you can trust is a dead white man” and “(o)ur party must continue to strike fear in the heart of the white man, our real enemy.”  The Commission is of the view that these constitute various violations of the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act 1 of 2000 (the “Equality Act”).

The Commission understands that there have been challenges over the past few weeks in serving the papers to the EFF. Once the papers have been served to the EFF they will be filled in Court.

Statement issued by Gushwell Brooks – Communications Co-ordinator, South African Human Rights Commission, 16 September 2020