DA demands immediate release of SAHRC report after fresh revelations of Stellenbosch University’s ban on Afrikaans

12 February 2023

The Democratic Alliance (DA) is appalled that various residences at Stellenbosch University have again allegedly implemented a widespread ban on even the informal use of Afrikaans during the university’s welcoming period.

The information in the DA’s possession indicates that this latest ban on Afrikaans is even more systematic than the one implemented by residences during 2021, when students were banned from speaking Afrikaans in their rooms, on campus, and even on park benches.

In what appears to have become a standard operating procedure across campus, groups of students conversing in Afrikaans – even when everyone in the group speaks Afrikaans – are now being instructed to switch to English.

Widespread intimidation and shaming of Afrikaans students by so-called student leaders at residences have also been reported in a series of affidavits currently being compiled by the student organisation StudentePlein.

It also appears that the university management is complicit in these violations, as they have to date not even bothered to acknowledge the violations and have completely failed to take action to protect the rights to language, dignity and cultural association of non-English speaking students.

In response to this latest scandal, the DA has already written to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) demanding the immediate release of its report into the complaint laid by the DA when the informal use of Afrikaans was first banned by the university in 2021.

As a result of the DA’s complaint, the HRC had conducted a series of hearings into the ban on Afrikaans at the university in 2021. The DA has had sight of the SAHRC’s interim report into this matter and we demand that the full, unredacted report be released to the public immediately.

Given that the university not only failed to act against the violation of language rights following the 2021 incidents, but that it has now seemingly intensified its ban on Afrikaans, it is not in the interests of justice for the HRC report into the original violations to be delayed any longer.

The DA will continue to lead the fight in Parliament to protect the rights of the speakers of indigenous languages, as outlined in the Constitution.

Statement issued by Dr Leon Schreiber MP - DA Constituency Head: Stellenbosch, 12 February 2023