South Africa: Mandela's foundation loses urgent court application
Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) – An urgent application by the Nelson Mandela Foundation over South Africa’s apartheid-era flag was dismissed in the Equality Court on Tuesday.
The foundation last month filed its application to declare that Ernst Roets, a senior official with the AfriForum organisation, is in contempt of court.
This was after Roets 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 demonstrated a clear intention to be hurtful and harmful and incited hatred against black people.
The complaint was lodged by the 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.
Judge Colin Lamont said while Roets may be found to have breached the provisions of the Equality Court Act, he was not in contempt of court.
"This in my view is precisely why the order does not contain a directive prohibiting the display of the flag," he said.
Responding to the ruling, Roets said the foundation had embarked on a witch-hunt to shut down voices of people who disagree with ideas of the ruling African National Congress.
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 said the Equality Act did not protect academic displays of the flag that were made in bad faith.
"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.
–0– PANA CU/AR 17Sept2019
