Equality Court finds Malema guilty of hate speech over rally remarks

CAPE TOWN - The Equality Court has found Economic Freedom Fighter (EFF) leader Julius Malema guilty of hate speech for remarks he made at a party rally in Cape Town almost 3 years ago.

Handing down judgment on Wednesday, the court said that by telling someone never to be scared to kill, Malema was inciting harm and violence.

His remarks stem from an altercation between parents at Brackenfell High School in Cape Town and EFF members in 2020.

But the EFF insists the court’s interpretation is flawed.

This is not the first time Malema has found himself skirting close to the law with his comments.

Judge Mark Sher said Malema’s comments at the party’s third provincial people’s assembly in October 2022 were contrary to the provisions of the Equality Act and demonstrated a clear intention to promote and propagate hatred.

At that event, referring to the Brackenfell High School altercation, Malema told supporters not to be scared to kill.

“No white man is going to beat me up and (I) call myself a revolutionary the following day. You must never be scared to kill. A revolution demands that at some point there must be killing, because the killing is part of a revolutionary act,”Malema said at the time.

Responding to the ruling, the party said it views it as an attack on democratic space and the right to articulate revolutionary politics.

It added that the court had stripped Malema’s speech of its political, historical and ideological context and assumed that the reasonable listener is incapable of understanding metaphor and rhetoric.

The EFF said it has already instructed its lawyers to appeal the ruling.