Neeshan Balton, the foundation’s director stated, “The Ahmed Kathrada Foundation has noted the recent comments made by Velaphi Khumalo. As with the Penny Sparrow incident, we strongly condemn Khumalo’s racist statements. We also condemn his call to ‘act as Hitler did to the Jews’ and ‘cleanse’ South Africa of white people.”
Balton went on to say that Khumalo’s call to invoke the horrors of the Holocaust were “outrageous” and that it was clearly a case of hate speech.
“Although the comments were posted on Khumalo’s Facebook page, he is an employee of the Gauteng sports, arts, culture and recreation department,” said Balton.
“Public servants are meant to serve everyone, irrespective of race. If Khumalo believes that white people should be ‘cleansed’ from South Africa, then he clearly should not be working as a public servant. There is no place for racists within the public service.”
Balton commended the department for speedily reacting to Khumalo’s online post by distancing itself from the comments and instituting an internal process to address the matter.
The foundation’s core objective is to deepen non-racialism and promote the values, rights and principles that are stated in the Freedom Charter and the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. The foundation is named after anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada, who was imprisoned alongside former president Nelson Mandela.
