Malema vows to defend Zindzi against AfriForum ‘with everything’

Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema has reacted to reports that Afrikaner lobby group AfriForum has laid hate speech charges against South Africa’s ambassador to Denmark, Zindzi Mandela-Hlongwane, by making it clear that he has her back.

“We will defend her with everything,” he tweeted.

Mandela-Hlongwane garnered both significant outrage and support with a series of tweets earlier this year under the hashtag #OurLand.

She responded to several of her detractors on Twitter, calling them “trembling white cowards”, “thieving rapist descendants of Van Riebeck [sic]” and “shivering land thieves”.

READ MORE: Zindzi Mandela lashes out at ‘trembling white cowards’ and ‘shivering land thieves’

AfriForum has now lodged a complaint at the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC).

This follows the lobby group deciding that Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor’s reaction to the tweets was insufficient.

After investigating the authenticity of the tweets, Pandor told Mandela to conduct herself as a diplomat and adhere to the social media policy of government.

The lobby group, however, wanted the diplomat immediately recalled and dismissed.

READ MORE: ‘Defend our Zindzi,’ Madikizela family asks after Mbeki criticism

“In view of this outcome, AfriForum has therefore decided to proceed with this complaint to the SAHRC,” said the group’s deputy chief executive responsible for international liaison, Alana Bailey, in a statement.

“With her messages, Mandela bore witness to a hate-bearing attitude towards white people in the country. She has publicly contributed to the polarisation of local communities. With crude language, as well as false and humiliating references such as ‘rapists’, ‘cowards’ and ‘land thieves’, she is contributing to a dangerous discourse of scapegoating,” she added.

Bailey said Mandela’s defence that she was entitled to her personal opinion demonstrated a complete lack of insight into her responsibility as ambassador to promote the image of South Africa and to serve all South Africans without prejudice.

READ MORE: AfriForum wants Zindzi Mandela dismissed as ambassador for ‘racist’ tweets

This is not the first offer of support the EFF has extended to Mandela-Hlongwane.
In a statement, the party said it was “in full support” of everything “Zindzi” said on Twitter, adding that she must be protected at all costs.

“No African child must ever be suspended or even threatened with losing any job or privileges for speaking the truth about the land. The land question must be resolved for a true decolonisation of our country to happen. Without the land, political freedom is futile and will soon be a joke,” the statement said.

“There is nothing racist by stating the correct fact that white people drove a racist project of land dispossession called colonisation. Zindzi Mandela must be defended from the racists’ onslaught,” it continued.

(Compiled by Daniel Friedman, additional reporting by ANA)

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