AfriForum drags Mngxitama to court over call to kill whites, their dogs and their cats

Lobby group AfriForum will face Black First Land First (BLF) Andile Mngxitama in the Equality Court in a case which will be heard on Wednesday and relates to the BLF leader’s call for white people to be killed along with their dogs and their cats.

At party event in Potchefstroom in December last year, Black First Land First (BLF) president Andile Mngxitama threatened that he and his followers would kill white people and their pets, also saying the party would kill five white people for every one black person killed. His speech was caught on video, causing outrage and raising renewed calls for the BLF leader to be prosecuted for hate speech.

AfriForum’s case against Mngxitama follows the organisation submitting hate speech charges against him last year. Spokesperson Hesti Steenkamp told IOL that AfriForum deputy CEO Ernst Roets will testify as an expert witness. Mngxitama, meanwhile, is expected to conduct his own defence, something he has done before.

Following the controversy last year, Mngxitama claimed his words were a call for “self-defence” and was being misunderstood and taken out of that supposed context.

He said in the speech that “they” would kill white people’s children, women, dogs, cats and “anything that comes before us”.

READ MORE: Mngxitama says killing whites and their pets is a response to Johann Rupert

This follows the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) successfully having BLF deregistered as a party for their exclusion of white people as members.

The BLF, in response, applied to the Electoral Court in Bloemfontein for leave to appeal what they have called “the unjust decision which has effectively banned the movement”.

The FF Plus lodged the case with the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) after finding out the BLF’s constitution only allowed black people to join the party.

The IEC dismissed the FF+’s initial attempt, leading them to appeal the decision at the Electoral Court – a decision which led to the BLF’s deregistration as a political party.

“BLF believes that should the Electoral Court grant us leave to appeal, strong prospects of success exist that the Court will ultimately overturn the decision of the IEC. We believe the IEC was bullied by the racist FF+ into banning our movement. The FF+ is terrified of BLF because it knows that we will ensure that land expropriation without compensation is a reality,” said the party in a statement issued by its deputy president, Zanele Lwana.

(Compiled by Daniel Friedman. Background reporting, Kaunda Selisho and Charles Cilliers)

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