SACP to lay charges against Nicole Barlow for tweet about Mantashe and Hani

The South African Communist Party (SACP) said it will lay charges against Nicole Barlow after she made racially divisive comments in a tweet against Minister Gwede Mantashe.

The decision by the SACP comes after a tweet Barlow shared in reaction to a Sunday Times story about Mantashe attending a Cosatu event instead of another event with President Cyril Ramaphosa.

In her reply, Barlow tweeted, “We missed an opportunity to do a Chris Hani on him…”

In 1993, Hani was shot and killed outside his home in Boksburg.

Comments serious

SACP General Secretary Solly Mapaila said Barlow’s comments cannot be taken lightly.

“Given what happened to Chris Hani, we cannot take the utterances lightly. Through the utterances, Nicole Barlow implicated herself in what happened to Chris Hani, the SACP general secretary who was assassinated in cold blood on 10 April 1993.

“This also suggests they, the ‘We…’ in her tweet, ‘… missed an opportunity to do’ the same on Mantashe,” Mapaila added.

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Others targeted?

Mapaila questioned if Barlow was also “aiming” at someone else.

“In missing the ‘opportunity’, who else were they aiming at, besides Mantashe? Who else did they miss? Who else did they not miss previously? These are some of the questions that must be asked about the self-implicating utterances by Nicole Barlow.”

The SACP has called on law enforcement authorities to not ignore the threat on Mantashe.

Janusz Waluś

The party said it is currently driving its campaign to secure a full inquest into the assassination of Chris Hani to unearth the whole truth and all the surrounding circumstances.

Last year, the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, Ronald Lamola placed Chris Hani’s Killer Janusz Waluś on parole under “strict conditions”.

This followed the Constitutional Court judgment, in November 2022, that Waluś be released within 10 days.

ALSO READ: Janusz Waluś discharged from hospital, released on parole