Court hears Malema's 'never be afraid to kill' remarks are hate speech
Linguist expert at the University of the North West, Dr. Karlien van den Berg, on Monday, testified that EFF's leader Julius Malema's October 2022 utterances amounted to hate speech.
Van den Berg made the remarks during her testimony at the Equality Court.
The case relates to remarks made by Malema during an EFF conference in Cape Town in October 2022, where he said, "You must never be afraid to kill, a revolution requires killing at some point because killing is part of the revolutionary act".
Malema subsequently failed to retract his statement and apologise despite being instructed by the South African Human Rights Commission.
AfriForum had previously submitted a complaint to the SAHRC following Malema’s remarks.
Van den Berg testified that it is unlikely that his words could be interpreted in any other way.
“The utterances, therefore, display various characteristics of hate speech but very specifically incitement to violence and propagation of hate based on race and gender. Consequently, it is my expert opinion that the average reasonable listener would interpret the utterances in question as a deliberate incitement to violence and propagation of hate.”
Malema's legal representative is set to cross-examine Van den Berg on Tuesday.
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