South Africa rights commission targets racist lawmaker
Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) – The South African Human Rights Commission (HRC) on Thursday confirmed that it is investigating Democratic Alliance (DA) MP Renaldo Gouws after an old video clip of him resurfaced in which he can be heard saying: “Kill all the kaffirs,” a deeply divisive racial slur.
The commission said it was notified by aggrieved citizens on social media who wanted it to intervene in the matter. It planned to institute proceedings in the Equality Court in the Eastern Cape immediately.
“Following assessment of the content, the commission has concluded that utterances allegedly made by Mr Gouws constitute hate speech and/or harassment as contemplated in terms of sections 10 and 11 of the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act 2000,” it said.
The DA on Thursday confirmed that Gouws has been suspended, pending an internal investigation.
Spokesperson Richard Newton said the party has established that the video, in which Gouws uses “execrable language is genuine and not a fake as initially suspected”.
In the clip, which was deleted, but archived in 2012, Gouws can be heard using the racial slurs.
Gouws made an apology on his social media pages for the video he posted in 2009 implying that white people were portrayed as the enemy and that “if Africa had to disappear off the face of the Earth, no one would notice”.
An online petition has called for the removal of Gouws from Parliament and it has received nearly 50,000 signatures.
Racial tension has flared as a result of the most fiercely contested elections in 30 years of democracy. The DA is historically white and is led by John Steenhuisen, who has yet to comment on the scandal.
-0- PANA CU/MA 21June2024
