JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – South African opposition leader Julius Malema has been found guilty of hate speech by the country’s equality court over remarks he made during a 2022 rally.
Malema, head of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), made the comments after an incident in which a white man allegedly assaulted an EFF member. He told supporters:
“No white man is going to beat me up… you must never be scared to kill. A revolution demands that at some point there must be killing.”
The court ruled that the statement “demonstrated an intent to incite harm,” dismissing arguments from Malema’s legal team that the remarks were metaphorical and part of revolutionary rhetoric.
“Whilst calling out someone who behaves as a racist may be acceptable, calling for them to be killed is not,” the court said in its judgment, adding that Malema’s words amounted to incitement to extreme violence.
Two complaints were lodged against the 44-year-old lawmaker — one by the South African Human Rights Commission and another by a citizen who alleged they had been threatened following Malema’s speech.
The EFF, however, rejected the ruling, calling it “fundamentally flawed” and accusing the court of deliberately misreading the context.
“It assumes that the reasonable listener is incapable of understanding metaphor, revolutionary rhetoric, or the history of liberation struggles,” the party said in a statement.
International Fallout
Malema, whose party placed fourth in last year’s general election, has faced mounting criticism abroad.
In June 2024, the UK barred him from entry, citing remarks in support of Hamas and previous statements suggesting violence against white South Africans.
The Home Office deemed his presence “non-conducive to the public good.”
Earlier this year, Malema was also singled out by U.S. President Donald Trump, who reportedly confronted President Cyril Ramaphosa by playing a video of Malema singing the anti-apartheid protest song Kill the Boer (Afrikaner); kill the farmer.
Though Afrikaner lobby groups have repeatedly sought to ban the song, South Africa’s courts have ruled it should not be taken literally in a protest context.
Malema’s conviction is the latest in a series of controversies surrounding the firebrand politician, whose rhetoric continues to polarise a country still grappling with racial tensions three decades after the end of apartheid.
