Who and what is AfriForum?

AfriForum is an Afrikaans civil rights organisation that protects the rights of minority groups at national as well as provincial level, and anyone who can identify with AfriForum’s principles and objectives may join the organisation. AfriForum’s community plan focuses on mobilising communities to thus take control of their own streets and neighbourhoods again. AfriForum ensures that your constitutional and civil rights are recognised and protected at national level.

Wie en wat is AfriForum?

AfriForum is ’n Afrikaanse burgerregteorganisasie wat die regte van minderheidsgroepe op sowel nasionale as provinsiale vlak beskerm, en enigiemand wat met AfriForum se beginsels en doelstellings kan identifiseer, mag by die organisasie aansluit. AfriForum se gemeenskapsplan fokus daarop om gemeenskappe te mobiliseer om só weer beheer terug te neem oor hul eie strate en woonbuurtes. AfriForum verseker dat jou grondwetlike én burgerregte op nasionale vlak erken en beskerm word.

Media statements

Malema’s utterances are hate speech: AfriForum achieves double victory in case against the Human Rights Commission

ByAfriForum 14/07/202314/07/2023

The civil rights organisation AfriForum was successful with its court application in the Johannesburg High Court against the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) to review their decision that utterances by Julius Malema, leader of the EFF, did not amount to hate speech. Judge Roland Sutherland today ruled that the SAHRC’s 2019 finding that Malema did not commit hate speech during a 2016 gathering, should be set aside. The court further found that the SAHRC does not have binding powers to make definitive decisions or findings. AfriForum won this case emphatically with costs.

The utterances by Malema, which are in question here, were made in 2016 during a gathering in Newcastle when he said, among other things: “We are not calling for the slaughtering of white people, at least for now.” In 2019, AfriForum filed court papers to review the SAHRC’s decision that these utterances are not hate speech.

“This is a double victory for AfriForum over the SAHRC, as our position is that Julius Malema committed clear hate speech in 2016, and that the SAHRC does not have binding powers. Both have now been confirmed by the court,” says Ernst van Zyl, Campaign Officer for Strategy and Content at AfriForum.

“There is a further success in this great victory, and that is that it also sets the precedent that findings made by the SAHRC may be challenged in court,” concludes Van Zyl.