National Assembly Criminalises Hate Speech and Hate Crimes, Sparks Mixed Reactions: “Watch How It Gets Abused”

• The hate speech and hate crimes bill has been passed by the National Assembly and has gotten mixed reactions
• The bill plans to decrease hate crimes and speech while assisting victims and does not affect the freedom of the press
• Some political parties believe the bill will be exploited by others and will take away citizens’ freedom of speech

CAPE TOWN - The National Assembly has passed a bill that criminalises hate speech and hate crimes. The move has been years in the making.

The bill aims to address the increased number of hate crimes and incidents of hate speech while assisting victims. It has also put measures to prevent and combat those offences in place.

The need to implement the hate crimes bill came against the backdrop of needing to sustain campaigns against racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia. According to the Parliamentary Monitoring Group, a person will be found guilty of a hate crime if the court finds them prejudiced or intolerant.

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Freedom of the press, artistic creativity and academic work will not be considered hate speech. However, hate speech will also be applied to cyberspace, including social media.

Despite many people supporting the bill’s passing, some political parties believe it will impact freedom of speech. The Democratic Alliance, Freedom Front Plus, African Christian Democratic Party and Al Jama-ah strongly opposed the bill.

The DA’s Janho Engelbrecht believes the bill was politically motivated by the ANC. According to EWN, he said the bill would affect more vulnerable people in a more serious manner.

Citizens share mixed reactions to hate crime bill

Adrian Snyman said:

“Watch how it gets abused. So people can get criminal records for saying words. What a joke.”

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Russel’ elemaitor’ Margolis commented:

“Well, hopefully we can see some arrests now.”

Thato Hassen posted:

“If you've ever experienced racism in this country, you'll understand why this bill is important.”

Rozelle Van Heerden wrote:

“Will this bill count for EVERYONE in the country or only certain people?”

Malungisa Barnati added:

“Pain went straight to DA and FF+.”

Bill proposed to protect LGBTQIA+ in SA from hate crimes, government called to sign

Briefly News also reported that LGBTQIA+ people in South Africa do not feel protected from hate crimes and hate speech.

2021 is the quarter-century anniversary of the South African Constitution which ensures that nobody is discriminated against on the basis of race, gender, religion, association, sexual orientation or ethnicity.

However, members of the LGBTQIA+ community in South Africa feel that this is not enough legal protection and have proposed a bill that will offer targeted protection so that those who commit hate crimes against queer people will be brought to justice, SABC News reports.

Source: Briefly News