South Africa: Mandela Foundation to sue over Apartheid flag image
Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) – The Nelson Mandela Foundation on Friday announced that it will file an urgent application in the High Court to declare that Ernst Roets, a senior official with the AfriForum organisation, is in contempt of court.
This was after Roets on Wednesday posted an image on Twitter with a caption of the Apartheid-era national flag and questioned whether he had displayed “hate speech”.
PANA reports that he was reacting to Deputy Judge President Phineas Mojapelo’s landmark ruling that the display of the flag demonstrates a clear intention to be hurtful and harmful and incites hatred against black people.
The complaint was lodged by the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) after the hated symbol of apartheid was displayed at an anti-crime rally by white farmers in 2017.
AfriForum which opposes the banning of the flag argued that displaying it did not constitute hate speech.
“Displaying the flag is destructive of our nascent non-racial democracy. It is an affront to the spirit and values of ubuntu (unity) which has become a mark of civilized interaction in post-apartheid South Africa,” Mojapelo said.
Roets said he posted the image of the flag on Twitter because he was posing an "academic question", adding that it seemed that the foundation's quest for "Apartheid style censorship and banning continues".
However, the foundation which seeks to safeguard Mandela’s legacy on Friday said the Equality Act did not protect academic displays of the flag that were made in bad faith.
"It was also disrespectful to the Deputy Judge President of the High Court. The Foundation has reached out on many occasions, publicly and privately, to collaborate with AfriForum and work together toward healing the wounds of the past and building the country described in our Constitution. These efforts have been rejected by AfriForum," it said in a statement received by PANA.
Meanwhile, former President FW de Klerk who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela in 1993, has addressed the sage.
He said all South Africans should be proud to fly the country’s new flag and remember the values that it represents.
“They include non-racialism, the need to heal the divisions of the past; respect for those who have worked to build and develop our country; and the foundational proposition that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity. That diversity must include respect and toleration for our diverse and often conflicting histories,” he said.
-0- PANA CU/VAO 23Aug2019
