Thursday, August 28, 2025 - A South African court has found opposition politician, Julius Malema, guilty of hate speech for telling his supporters at a 2022 rally that they should “never be scared to kill.”
Malema, the firebrand leader of the Economic Freedom
Fighters (EFF) party, has long been criticised by South Africa’s white minority
for his radical rhetoric and his singing of the anti-apartheid song, “Kill the
Boer, kill the farmer,” which some say incites anti-white violence. He has been
at the centre of tensions between Washington and Pretoria.
The Equality Court ruled, yesterday, that Malema’s remarks
“constituted hate speech… as they demonstrated a clear intention to incite harm
and to promote or propagate hatred.”
“The remarks were an ‘exhortation to kill white males who had participated’ in the 2020 incident and to respond violently to racist behaviour, the ruling stated.
Malema’s EFF party said it would appeal the judgment, arguing that the court’s interpretation “strips the speech of its political, historical and ideological context.”
However, South Africa’s second-largest party, the Democratic
Alliance (DA), which strongly opposed the EFF, welcomed the ruling as “a
victory against Malema’s campaign to incite racial division and hatred in our
society.”
This is as South Africa’s Consul-General in Lagos, Bobby
Moroe, has dismissed claims that visa denials for Nigerians are rooted in
Xenophobia. Moroe insists that most applications are approved and that
rejections arise only from non-compliance with immigration requirements.
Moroe spoke, yesterday, during the 25th anniversary of the
Nigeria–South Africa Chamber of Commerce (NSACC) in Lagos, where the Chamber
also unveiled a new logo to mark the milestone.
The envoy also addressed recurring complaints about visa
denials, insisting that South Africa does not deliberately shut out Nigerians.
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