Last Updated on August 23, 2019
In the Rainbow Nation, while politicians sing about slaughtering the boer; saying mean things, or, in this case, tweeting out hateful symbols, can land you in hot water.
Last year, Vicky Momberg was sentenced to three years in prison for a viral rant in which she used the “K-word”, which is racially insensitive in South Africa, forty-eight times.
Yesterday, AfriForum’s Head of Policy, Ernst Roet, came under fire for tweeting an image of South Africa’s Apartheid flag captioned, “Did I just commit hate speech?”
The Nelson Mandela Foundation has just announced that they intend to have me criminally prosecuted. I will speak with our legal team and respond with a statement soon.
— Ernst Roets (@ErnstRoets) August 23, 2019
According to IOL, “AfriForum opposed the NMF’s court application to have the old flag deemed illegal. The organisation said the subsequent judgment was a setback for freedom of speech in the country and that it would need time to study the judgment before it can respond comprehensively and detail its way forward.”
Being criminally prosecuted for posting an image on Twitter is peak 2019 South Africa.
I hope the world is watching. https://t.co/nSEODd89Fo
— Conscious Caracal 🇿🇦 (@ConCaracal) August 23, 2019
Freedom of expression comes with a price in a country where a white farmer is murdered, on average, every five days.Â
Some images from farm attacks which have circulated social media show the sheer extent of the brutality of these farm attacks, with victims mercilessly tortured with pliers, hammers, blowtorches, rape, and scalding water.
Farm activists who have drawn global attention to the scale of the atrocities committed to white farmers in South Africa have been met with condemnation by local and international press.
Many publications have labeled their claims as ‘conspiracy theories’ or associate them with global white supremacist theories.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation has now confirmed in writing that they want me imprisoned, for tweeting an academic question with regard to the old SA flag. A new era of enforced conformity has arrived. We will fight this. #freespeech #itsnotabouttheflag pic.twitter.com/E7YZ4Nd0Mn
— Ernst Roets (@ErnstRoets) August 23, 2019
It appears that voices attempting to expose farm attacks in South Africa are in the process of being silenced.
An anti-farm attack activist, Annette Kennealy, was bludgeoned to death with a hammer earlier this year.
The Western Mainstream Media has either been deafeningly silent on reporting on the South African government’s anti-white policies or praised the redistributive postcolonial social justice of the policies.
