- A Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill has been introduced in Parliament which aims to criminalise hate speech in South Africa.
- News24 hosted a webinar to discuss what would be the right way to punish racist behaviour in South Africa.
- The panel looked at what the hate speech bill proposes and what would be the appropriate sanction for hate speech.
South African race and legal experts are debating whether the countryneeds hate speech legislation, similar to legislation in Germany which bans theglorification of Nazi Germany.
It has been almost 30 years since the end of the apartheid regime, whichseparated people by the colour of their skin, and lawmakers are still battlingto find appropriate remedies to racism and other forms of prejudice thatundermine our democracy.
News24hosted a webinar Tuesday, in conjunction with the Campaign for the Freedom ofExpression, to discuss what would be the right way to punish racist behaviourin the country.
The panel looked at what the hate speech bill proposes, and what wouldbe the appropriate sanction for hate speech:
What does the hate speech bill propose?
To fight pervasive intolerance and racial discrimination in the country,the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill was introducedin Parliament in April 2018.
The bill is before Parliament for public hearings, with several expertsand organisations having their say as part of oral submissions.
Some pundits have labelled it unconstitutional in its current form,while others argue there are already sufficient existing laws to deal with hatespeech.
The draft legislation threatens jail sentences for those who utter orspread hate speech - the definition of which has been vigorously debated bycivil society groups.
Does South Africa need a hate speech bill?
Johannesburg-based attorney Buang Jones, who previously served at the SAHuman Rights Commission, said he believed racism should be punished and racistsjailed.
"Racism has been a defining feature of our country for much of ourhistory, and as a state policy, racial discrimination was lawful and well-resourcedfor over a century," Jones added during the webinar.
"Despite constitutional-guaranteed equality, many Africans stillexperience discrimination on a daily basis because of their race; racists overthe last 20 years have become more emboldened.
"My position is that we should punish racists, as the number ofmeasures that we've adopted over the years has not yielded results. And racistscontinue to undermine our personal aspirations of a nation that is based onhuman dignity equality and freedom."
Meanwhile, Mark Oppenheimer, an advocate at the Johannesburg Bar, saidthere was "enormous danger" in criminalising mere racism.
"What was done during the Soviet era was to describe speeches as pornographic,and a lot of people felt that pornographic material ought to be criminalisedand then you could imprison people for producing pornographic material,"Oppenheimer added.
"Often that material had nothing to do with sex. It had to do withideas that were contrary to the will of the state. And so undoubtedly, therewill be a danger in criminalising racism as those who are in power will decide onwhat counts as racism."
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He added for hate speech to be considered as such it had to incite onegroup to perform harm against another group as the Constitutional Court had alreadydecided hurtful words on their own did not amount to hate speech.
Oppenheimer said other forums of fighting racism could be considered,such as persuasion.
The co-editor of the Routledge International Handbook of Critical Studiesin Whiteness and researcher at Nelson Mandela University, Professor Christi vander Westhuizen, added the problem with prosecuting racism was that itindividualised the problem whereas racism was systemic.
"It's been institutionalised in our country; we have to rememberthat we come from a background of colonialism and apartheid. While we've seenthe formal end of apartheid, unfortunately, those legacies are running into thepresent."
The former premier of Gauteng and former general-secretary of Cosatu,Mbhazima Shilowa, said it was true everyone was guaranteed freedom of speech inSouth Africa.
"In South Africa, we must remember that the majority of SouthAfricans face racism of one sort or another on a daily basis, at work, inrestaurants, in promotion, in economic positions for not being available, andso forth," Shilowa added.
"Ibelieve that it's important that we find a remedy, and that remedy willobviously have to be constitutional."
