Professor threatened in series of calls and texts after criticising AfriForum
- Professor Elmien du Plessis who criticised AfriForum for visiting the US has received numerous threatening calls and text messages
- AfriForum deputy CEO Ernst Roets posted a YouTube video on Saturday in which he attacked du Plessis for her criticism
- One anonymous caller told du Plessis not to get comfortable because she was next
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Professor Elmien du Plessis is an academic from the North West University who recently criticised AfriForum’s its awareness tour to the United States has been threatened in a series of calls and text messages. One caller allegedly told du Plessis not to get too comfortable because she was next.
Du Plessis started receiving threats after AfriForum’s deputy CEO Ernst Roets posted a YouTube video on Saturday night in which he attacked the professor. At the end of the 31-minute long tirade Roets quotes Jewish writer Victor Klemperer, who wrote that if the tables were turned after the Holocaust, he "would have all the intellectuals strung up, and the professors three feet higher than the rest; they would be left hanging from the lamp posts for as long as was compatible with hygiene."
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Du Plessis has been called a ‘hansakie’ an Afrikaans term which means traitor. She has also been labelled a liberal who was trying to smooch up to the majority.
Briefly.co.za gathered that Roets refused to answer questions about the context of the quote in his video, but he did say in the video that AfriForum had no intention of harming anyone.
Roets said: "Of course, we have no intention to harm... anyone. We have no intention to harm you for making these statements. We don't even have any intention to debate you."
Du Plessis said while the threats and the circulation of her and her family’s personal details was disturbing, but she remained steadfast in her convictions.
She said: "The anonymous phone call was from a number that isn't traceable. He also hung up before I could ask him who he was. It is, however, unacceptable to threaten somebody because of what they try to argue in a rational and sensible manner," she told HuffPost. She is considering asking the police to investigate the threats to her family.”
Roets refused to specifically state that he would discourage his or AfriForum’s supporters from making threats, but he pointed out that the organisation had always been opposed to racism in any and all shapes and forms.
Roets said AfriForum "unequivocally" condemned threats of violence against any person. He, however, did not refer to Du Plessis directly or by name.
This type of behaviour should be condemned by all people in South Africa, no one should be personally threatened for holding a certain perspective which does not necessarily conform to what other people feel or believe.
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Source: Briefly News
