Andile faces Equality Court over hate tweets

NICOLA MILTZ

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) on Tuesday launched its case against Mngxitama after two repulsive anti-Semitic Holocaust tweets posted by him two weeks ago.

The Board’s national director, Wendy Kahn, says Mngxitama’s statements were hurtful, harmful, anti-Semitic, inciteful and derogatory and constitute hate speech. The Board wants Mngxitama’s hate speech to be dealt with and an appropriate, just and equitable remedy ordered by the court, she said.

In papers before court, the SAJBD said it wanted the court to order Mngxitama to apologise on Twitter, remove the offending posts and participate in an educational sensitivity training course at a suitable institution. Failing this, they want him to be fined R150 000.

The SAJBD filed their complaint at the Johannesburg High Court, which also acts as an Equality Court.

In a statement issued this week, the Board said of the tweets: “In addition to the distress they have caused to the Jewish community, they have been greeted with widespread outrage throughout South African society.” The board said that the tweets “are clearly aimed at mocking the orchestrated murder of millions of Jews during the Holocaust”.

But worse, it said, they also “dehumanise Jewish people in general by depicting not only their deaths, but even the supposed desecration of their remains as an occasion for humour”.

The SAJBD has therefore decided to approach the Equality Court to vindicate the violation of the rights to dignity and to prevent comments such as these from being made in the future.

In a supporting affidavit, Kahn, said: “Mngxitama has engaged in conduct that amounts to hate speech against the South African Jewish community, and Jewish people in general, by posting via his Twitter account demeaning, hurtful and grossly offensive comments that qualify as hate speech.”

Such comments, she said, create an environment within which racist and hateful attitudes are allowed to flourish, and a hostile and intimidating environment is created.

As a result of Mngxitama’s posts, his Twitter forum has become a platform and a discussion area for further anti-Semitic hate speech and the advocacy of hatred on the basis of religion or ethnicity, according to the Board. Mngxitama has approximately 75 000 Twitter followers.

Kahn said the BLF leader “has heavily criticised the SAJBD for not bringing cases against other forms of hate speech.”

In response to this, the papers say “the Jewish community’s right to dignity and equality is not conditional on its representative organisations first condemning human rights violations against other groups. It is an absolute right guaranteed to all citizens under the Constitution.”

The affidavit states that the right to freedom of expression does not include the right to propagate hate speech, that hate speech was not protected at all in the Bill of Rights or the Constitution.

It also points out that Mngxitama’s Twitter profile “is more than just a personal series of exchanges with friends and family; it is a public arena in which hundreds and even thousands of people engage in discussions”.

Equally relevant, the Board points out, is the fact that Mngxitama has a public profile as a result of his leading position in the BLF movement, whose activities have been widely reported on in the mainstream media. 

 Furthermore, Mngxitama expressed no regret about what he had posted, but on the contrary justified it by saying that it had had the intended effect of drawing attention to certain controversial comments about colonialism made by (Western Cape Premier) Helen Zille, who he apparently believes is Jewish.

Mngxitama’s tweets elicited numerous further overtly anti-Semitic comments in the social media, with several of these being sent directly to Jewish community members, said the court papers.

Kahn said: “All conduct targeting hatred at any and all group or persons, whether the target is for example foreigners, members of the LBGT community, the adherents of the Christian, Islamic and other faiths and religions, or racial groups in society, is condemned by the SAJBD in the strongest terms.”