'Ugly racist incidents' must not be tolerated - Minister Lamola

• Published date: 23 May 2022
• Publication title: South African Official News

Justice and Constitutional Development Minister, Ronald Lamola, has strongly condemned the racist incident between two students at Stellenbosch University last week and called for the meting out of justice in terms of the law.

He was addressing the South African conference marking the 20th Anniversary of the World Conference Against Racism.

The racist incident at the university emerged after a video of a white student urinating on a black student's study desk and material began to circulate on social media last week.

'In our sporting teams, in our schools, in our universities [and] our general life, we continue to see incidences of racism and intolerance raising their ugly heads. The incident at Stellenbosch [University] is one too many. It is akin to defecating and urinating on the Constitution itself.

'These kinds of barbaric incidents must be condemned and must be dealt with accordingly and I am glad that the student has opened a case and justice must prevail. We have to appeal to white parents to preach love and diversity in their families. There is no reason for a 21-year-old to be accused of racism in this day and age. This points to the upbringing of the child because this child was born post-democracy,' he said.

Lamola acknowledged that South African law has not always catered for the prosecution of discrimination but added that laws are catching up and modernising.

'To pursue the democratic project, particularly Section 9 of the Constitution, several laws have been enacted to protect the rights of all South Africans. We have recognised that our legislative framework did not cater for racism and prejudice in the mainstream and social media platforms because there was no social media at the time.

'The Electronic Communication and Transaction Act, the National Cyber Security Framework, Regulation of Interception of Communications and Protection of Personal Information Act are instruments to address bigotry and discrimination on social media platforms in any way they manifest themselves,' he said.

The Minister said that added to this, Parliament is concluding its work on the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill which 'gives the state a wider reach against hate crimes'.

Xenophobia and homophobia

The Minister said as South Africans commit to stamping out racism, xenophobia must also get the same treatment.

'Equally, the surge of incidences of xenophobia calls for all of us to work together to build a diverse society against and all related...