BLF vs AfriForum: Hate speech case postponed

Square off between Black First Land First (BLF) leader Andile Mnxgitama and lobby group AfriForum in the Equality Court over Mngxitama’s hate speech statements was postponed on Wednesday.

According to a TimesLIVE report, Mngxitama, who had previously stated that he would represent himself, asked for the case to be postponed amid arriving with a lawyer Wednesday morning.

“They arrived only this morning with a lawyer and the lawyer said he has not been fully briefed and they want the matter postponed,” said Ernst Roets, AfriForum’s deputy chief executive.

AfriForum lodged legal action against Mngxitama over his “kill white people” statements made during a rally in Potchefstroom last December.

“You kill one of us, we will kill five of you. We will kill their women, we will kill their children, we will kill their dogs, we will kill their cats, we kill anything that comes for us,” Mngxitama said.

According to Mngxitama, his utterances were said out of “self-defence” and in response to threats by entrepreneur Johann Rupert.

“This case is not about what we said. It’s about what Johann Rupert said; Johann Rupert’s threat of unleashing a militia to the taxi industry. That is what we were responding to,” said Mngxitama.

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The postponement is to also all for Mngxitama to seek advice from a legal representative, for media houses to apply to film court proceedings and for both BLF and AfriForum to submit file documents.