Concerns arose after Malema publicly declared whites should not be “slaughtered for now”, which prompted the former national spokesperson for the Congress of the People Youth Movement (Cope YM), Elias Muller, the Democratic Alliance and AfriForum, along with others from different provinces to register complaints with the SAHRC.

SAHRC communications coordinator Gushwell Brooks confirmed the complaints had been received.

“Because the commission has received complaints from different provincial offices, these complaints are currently being assessed,” said Brooks.

AfriForum is among the complainants and so are individuals and organisations from KwaZulu-Natal, the Western Cape and Mpumalanga. In his complaint to the SAHRC dated November 8, Muller, now a community activist, said the utterances Malema made after his appearance at the Newcastle Magistrates’ Court were “reckless and irresponsible”.

“I view Mr Malema’s utterance as irresponsible, reckless and dangerous considering the position he holds in his party.

“I request the SAHRC to investigate Mr Malema’s statement of ‘not calling for the slaughter of white people, at least not for now’ because this suggests that there will be a time when Mr Malema might call for the slaughtering of white people,” said Muller in his complaint.

He said whether it was “hate speech against the white people or not”, it was important to investigate his comments.

Although Muller resides in North West, the matter is registered with the KwaZulu-Natal SAHRC office, as he stipulated in his complaint that he has no “confidence in the SAHRC’s provincial North West office based on how they dealt with previous complaints he lodged against other politicians with them”.

Therefore, he asked for the national office to attend to his complaint.

Source: The Citizen