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SAHRC to hear complaint against King Goodwill

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Charges of hate speech have been lodged against King Goodwill Zwelethini at the South African Human Rights Council (SAHRC), following the monarch’s negative statements against foreigners residing in the country. Zwelethini’s controversial remarks, in which he is thought to have urged foreigners to leave the country, has been blamed for the shocking xenophobic violence that has plagued Durban over the past week.

Timothy Flack, Western Cape organizer for the South African National Defense Union (SANDU), sought to provide some insight as to the ‘tinder that has sparked the violence’. He alleged that the violence was a result of a KZN factory owner opting to fire striking workers at his factory, before replacing them with foreign nationals who would work for cheaper.

“Then the king went up and referred to foreign nationals as ‘lice’, and said that they dirty the streets and sell cheap goods on the streets,” he claimed, suggesting this had only further fuelled the anger.

Some media reports have suggested that Zwelethini’s comments may have been taken out of context, with video footage currently doing the rounds of the speech in question. But Flack was adamant this was not the case, noting that there were two different videos, the first cutting out the king’s reference to foreigners as ‘lice’, and the second unedited version showing the statements in its entirety.

Although Flack stands as an employee of the SANDU, the union has since distanced itself from the complaint to the SAHRC. He suggested this was based on the fact that the SANDU held a specific mandate to only cover matters related to soldiers of the SANDF; something that current issue did not fall in line with.

“They cannot deal with matters that relate to civilians; only paying uniform members of the SANDU. Any other issue that pops up in between, they are not allowed to by law get involved,” he noted.

Despite this, he insisted he had the support of the SANDU’s national secretary, and his various colleagues.

Flack said there was a fear amongst this currently working abroad in African states that there may be a knock-on effect of the violence, and that they may become the subject of retaliation. VOC (Mubeen Banderker)


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