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Tag: Julius Malema

  • South African Firebrand MP Malema Convicted of Firing a Gun in Public

    South African Firebrand MP Malema Convicted of Firing a Gun in Public

    South African opposition politician Julius Malema has been found guilty of illegal possession of a gun and firing it in public, offences which carry a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.

    In 2018, a video emerged showing the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader using a semi-automatic rifle to fire several shots in the air during his party’s fifth anniversary celebrations held in the country’s Eastern Cape province.

    He was charged alongside his former bodyguard Adriaan Snyman, who was acquitted.

    Malema was convicted of hate speech less than two months ago and often lashes out at the white minority in a country where, 31 years after apartheid ended, racial tensions still run high.

    He has called for the seizure of white-owned land and argues that more should be done to transfer wealth to the black majority.

    Malema was convicted of five offences, including the unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition, discharging it in a public space and reckless endangerment. These offences fall under the Firearms Control Act and carry a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.

    He was accused of firing between 14 and 15 live rounds on a stage in front of 20,000 EFF supporters, according to South African news site SowetanLIVE.

    In his defence, Malema told the court the firearm was not his and that he had fired the shots to rouse the crowd, the publication added.

    It took three days for magistrate Twanet Olivier to tell Malema “you are found guilty as charged”. The case was postponed to January 2026 for pre-sentencing.

    Malema seemed unfazed by his conviction, telling supporters that “going to prison or death is a badge of honour”.

    “We cannot be scared of prison [or] to die for the revolution. Whatever they want to do, they must know we will never retreat,” he said outside the East London regional court.

    He vowed to challenge the judgment, even up to South Africa’s highest court, the Constitutional Court.

    Malema’s prosecution came after Afrikaner lobby group AfriForum, which has a contentious relationship with Malema and the EFF, opened a case against him after the video went viral.

    AfriForum was also among those who laid a hate speech complaint against the EFF MP at South Africa’s Human Rights Commission.

    This resulted in his conviction by the country’s equality court in August this year.

    After an incident where a white man allegedly assaulted an EFF member, Malema said: “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 equality court ruled that these remarks “demonstrated an intent to incite harm”, but the EFF said they were taken out of context.

    Malema’s controversy extends beyond South Africa.

    US President Donald Trump showed a video of the radical leader during his heated meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the White House in May, using it as part of his “evidence” that genocide was being committed against white Afrikaners in South Africa – a claim that has been widely discredited.

    White House staff played several clips of Malema chanting “Kill the Boer [Afrikaner], Kill the farmer” and making fiery comments about land occupation and white people.

    A month later, Malema was denied entry to the UK over his support for Hamas and comments about white people in South Africa. The Home Office said he had been deemed “non-conducive to the public good”.

    Ian Cameron, from the Democratic Alliance, South Africa’s second biggest party, welcomed the conviction, saying the matter was not just about Malema’s conduct but also the “culture of chaos, violence and criminality that the leader of the EFF embodies and promotes”.

    “A man who fires live rounds at a political rally demonstrates exactly the kind of thuggery the EFF is prepared to unleash on South Africa,” Cameron, who is also an MP, said in a statement.

    Legal expert Ulrich Roux told the BBC there was a “good chance” Malema could serve a prison sentence.

    “He now needs to present evidence to the court to show why… he should not receive the minimum sentence of 15 years,” he said.

    In South Africa, anyone who has been handed a prison sentence longer than 12 months without the option of a fine cannot serve as an MP. The constitution however, only regards the sentence as final once the appeal process has been exhausted. This disqualification ends five years after the sentence has been completed.

  • Is There a Genocide of White South Africans as Trump Claims?

    Is There a Genocide of White South Africans as Trump Claims?

    US President Donald Trump has given members of South Africa’s Afrikaner community refugee status, alleging that a genocide was taking place in the country.

    Nearly 60 of them have arrived in the US after being granted asylum.

    The South African government allowed the US embassy to consider their applications inside the country, and let the group board a chartered flight from the main international airport in Johannesburg – not scenes normally associated with refugees fleeing persecution.

    Trump later confronted South Africa’s president about the allegations in a packed White House meeting attended by his South African-born adviser Elon Musk and scores of journalists. It was a high-profile encounter that has also rarely been seen during humanitarian crises.

    Who are the Afrikaners?

    South African History Online sums up their identity by pointing out that “the modern Afrikaner is descended mainly from Western Europeans who settled on the southern tip of Africa during the middle of the 17th Century”.

    A mixture of Dutch (34.8%), German (33.7%) and French (13.2%) settlers, they formed a “unique cultural group” which identified itself “completely with African soil”, South African History Online noted.

    Their language, Afrikaans, is quite similar to Dutch.

    But as they planted their roots in Africa, Afrikaners, as well as other white communities, forced black people to leave their land.

    Afrikaners are also known as Boers, which actually means farmer, and the group is still closely associated with farming.

    In 1948, South Africa’s Afrikaner-led government introduced apartheid, or apartness, taking racial segregation to a more extreme level.

    This included laws which banned marriages across racial lines, reserved many skilled and semi-skilled jobs for white people, and forced black people to live in what were called townships and homelands.

    They were also denied a decent education, with Afrikaner leader Hendrik Verwoerd infamously remarking in the 1950s that “blacks should never be shown the greener pastures of education. They should know their station in life is to be hewers of wood and drawers of water”.

    Afrikaner dominance of South Africa ended in 1994, when black people were allowed to vote for the first time in a nationwide election, bringing Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) to power.

    Afrikaners currently number more than 2.5 million out of a population of more than 60 million – about 4%.

    Is a genocide being committed?

    Afrikaners make up about 4% of South Africa's population
    Afrikaners make up about 4% of South Africa’s population

    None of South Africa’s political parties – including those that represent Afrikaners and the white community in general – have claimed that there is a genocide in South Africa.

    But such claims have been circulating among right-wing groups for many years, and during his first term, Trump referred to the “large scale killing of farmers” in South Africa.

    Some white farmers have been killed but a lot of misleading information has been circulated online.

    In February, a South African judge dismissed the idea of a genocide as “clearly imagined” and “not real”, when ruling in an inheritance case involving a wealthy benefactor’s donation to white supremacist group Boerelegioen.

    South Africa does not release crime figures based on race but the latest figures revealed that 6,953 people were murdered in the country between October and December 2024.

    Of these, 12 were killed in farm attacks. Of the 12, one was a farmer, while five were farm dwellers and four were employees, who are likely to have been black.

    What have Trump and Musk said?

    Defending his decision to give Afrikaners refugee status, Trump said that a “genocide” was taking place in South Africa, white farmers were being “brutally killed” and their “land is being confiscated”.

    South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has said it was “completely false” to claim that “people of a certain race or culture are being targeted for persecution”.

    Referring to the first group who have moved to the US, Ramaphosa previously said: “They are leaving because they don’t want to embrace the changes that are taking place in our country and our constitution.”

    At a meeting at the White House in May, Trump ambushed his counterpart by playing videos which he claimed showed proof of a genocide. The videos included an opposition politician singing a song that some say evokes violence against white South Africans.

    Ramaphosa, who had brought white South African golfers to the meeting to meet Trump, condemned what was shown in the video and also explained to Trump that South Africa allows free expression.

    Trump also displayed photos of white people he said had been murdered, prompting Ramaphosa to remind him that such crimes affect people of any race.

    The White House meeting was also attended by Trump’s close adviser Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa.

    Leaving the White House, Ramaphosa said he thought the meeting had gone well, and that Trump still has some doubts as to whether a genocide is taking place.

    Trump also said he was not sure how he could attend the G20 summit of world leaders, due to be held in South Africa later this year, in such an environment.

    The government denies that land is being confiscated from farmers, saying that a bill Ramaphosa signed into law in January was aimed at addressing the land dispossession that black people faced during white-minority rule.

    But the law has been condemned by the Democratic Alliance (DA), Ramaphosa’s main coalition partner in government. The DA say it will challenge the law in South Africa’s highest court, as it threatens property rights.

    Musk has referred to the country’s “racist ownership laws”, alleging that his satellite internet service provider Starlink was “not allowed to operate in South Africa simply because I’m not black”.

    To operate in South Africa, Starlink needs to obtain network and service licences, which both require 30% ownership by historically disadvantaged groups.

    This mainly refers to South Africa’s majority black population, which was shut out of the economy during the racist system of apartheid.

    The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) – a regulatory body in the telecommunications and broadcasting sectors – told the BBC that Starlink had never submitted an application for a licence.

    Musk has also accused the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), the fourth-largest party in South Africa, of “actively promoting” a genocide through a song it sings at its rallies.

    Why does a political party sing about shooting Boers?
    Julius Malema is a controversial politician who advocates the nationalisation of land in South Africa
    Julius Malema is a controversial politician who advocates the nationalisation of land in South Africa

    EFF leader Julius Malema’s trademark song is “Shoot the Boer, Shoot the farmer”, which he sings at political rallies.

    Afrikaner lobby groups have tried to get the song banned, saying it was highly inflammatory and amounted to hate speech.

    However, South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal has ruled that Malema is within his rights to sing the lyrics – first popularised during the anti-apartheid struggle – at political rallies.

    The court ruled that a “reasonably well-informed person” would understand that when “protest songs are sung, even by politicians, the words are not meant to be understood literally, nor is the gesture of shooting to be understood as a call to arms or violence”.

    Instead, the song was a “provocative way” of advancing the EFF’s political agenda – which was to end “land and economic injustice”.

    Lobby group AfriForum filed an appeal against the ruling, but South Africa’s highest court refused to hear the case, saying it had little chance of succeeding.

    In 2023, South Africa’s former President Thabo Mbeki urged Malema to stop singing the song, saying it was no longer politically relevant as the anti-apartheid struggle was over.

    The ANC says it no longer sings it, but it cannot “prescribe to other political parties what they must sing”.

    Do white people face discrimination in South Africa?

    Even though white-minority rule ended in 1994, its effects are still being felt.

    Average living standards are far higher for the white community than black people.

    White people occupy 62.1% of top management posts, despite only accounting for 7.7% of the country’s economically active population, according to a recent report by South Africa’s Commission for Employment Equity.

    The government has tried to change this through what it calls “economic empowerment” and “employment equity” laws.

    An amended version of the second act includes strict targets for companies aimed at increasing the number of non-white employees.

    While these laws have been welcomed by many South Africans, some members of racial minorities feel they make it harder for them to get jobs and government contracts. There has also been criticism that they can lead to corruption, for example when business opportunities are given to friends and relatives of officials.

    Among the critics have been the Democratic Alliance, which despite being part of the governing coalition, recently challenged the amended Employment Equity Act in court, saying it would “make far more people marginalised in our economy than they already are”.

    Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie recently came under fire when a job in his department was advertised as being only open to the Coloured, Asian and white populations.

    He defended this move, saying he was applying the Employment Equity Act and ensuring “all races are represented”, because most of the people in his department were black.

    Do most Afrikaners want to move to the US?

    Some Afrikaners see US President Donald Trump as an ally
    Some Afrikaners see US President Donald Trump as an ally

    It doesn’t look like it.

    In March, a business group said that close to 70,000 Afrikaners had expressed interest in moving to the US following Trump’s offer – from an estimated population of 2.5 million.

    The US embassy in South Africa then released a statement clarifying the criteria for resettlement, saying it covered people from any racial minority, not just Afrikaners, who could cite an incident of past persecution or fear of persecution in the future.

    One Afrikaner who moved to the US told BBC News that he is grateful to Trump for granting him asylum.

    “I felt finally somebody in this world is seeing what’s going on,” said Charl Kleinhaus.

    South Africa’s most recent census, done in 2022, shows that Coloureds, (an officially used term meaning people of mixed racial origin) are the largest minority, making up 8% of the population. They are followed by white people, including Afrikaners, at 7%, and Asians at 3%.

    After Trump’s offer, Afrikaner lobby group Solidarity posted an article on its website headlined: “Ten historical reasons to stay in South Africa”.

    In parliament, the leader of the right-wing Freedom Front Plus party said they were committed to South Africa.

    “We are bound to Africa and will build a future for ourselves and our children here,” Corné Mulder said.

    (BBC)

  • Julius Malema Slams UK Govt After Being Denied Visa To Attend Cambridge University Conference

    Julius Malema Slams UK Govt After Being Denied Visa To Attend Cambridge University Conference

    South African firebrand opposition politician Julius Malema says he has been denied a visa to attend a conference in the UK on 10 May.

    Malema said the UK had no “substantial justification” for its decision, and he saw it as an “attempt to silence a dissenting political perspective”.

    In a leaked letter to Malema’s deputy, the UK High Commissioner to South Africa, Antony Phillipson, said the Home Office had been unable to process his visa application in time for his trip.

    Malema, the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, is a fierce critic of what he sees as “Western imperialism”, and also advocates the nationalisation of white-owned land in South Africa.

    A Home Office spokesperson told the BBC that they do not comment on individual cases.

    In a post on X, the EFF said the High Commission had “actively delayed the processing and approval” of their leader’s visa so that he could not speak at the University of Cambridge on 10 May.

    He had been invited by the university’s African Society to address its Africa Together Conference, the EFF added.

    In his letter, which the BBC has been told is genuine, Mr Phillipson said that he wanted to “personally apologise” that the Home Office in the UK had been “unable to process the application in time owing to the necessary steps required to consider visa applications and the unfortunate timing of some recent UK Bank Holidays”.

    He added that he had taken a “personal interest in the issue” over the last week.

    “I recognise that this will be deeply disappointing, especially as the delegation applied in advance and some paid for priority service,” Mr Phillipson said, in the letter to the EFF’s Godrich Gardee.

    Mr Phillipson added that the Home Office had agreed to refund the application fee.

    Malema said on X that the EFF delegation had been promised that “everything would be sorted”, but received a “regret letter just hours before our departure”.

    “This is unacceptable and spineless,” he added.

    The UK had a bank, or public, holiday on 5 May.

  • ‪‘Go To Hell’ Julius Malema Fires Back At Elon Musk After Calling Him A ‘International Criminal’‬

    ‪‘Go To Hell’ Julius Malema Fires Back At Elon Musk After Calling Him A ‘International Criminal’‬

    Elon Musk, in a tweet made on Sunday, said Malema committed a serious crime and should be punished accordingly.

    The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a South African Marxist–Leninist and pan-Africanist political party, has fiercely rejected comments made by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, who called for the party’s leader, Julius Malema, to be declared an international criminal.

    The American businessman and Tesla CEO, on Sunday, called for immediate sanctions against the South African politician and lawmaker Julius Malema over a controversial speech he made in 2018 targeting white people.

    According to the White House, Musk is officially serving under President Donald Trump as a special government employee.

    In November 2024, as President-elect at the time, Trump tapped Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head the ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ (DOGE).

    In a viral video from 2018, Malema declared that his party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), sought to remove Nelson Mandela Bay Mayor Athol Trollip solely because of his race.

    The politician said: “We have taken a decision that we are going to remove the mayor of PE [Port Elizabeth],” he made the statement while addressing a crowd at the Standard Bank Arena in Johannesburg during the launch of the party’s election registration campaign.

    “Why? Why not [mayor of DA-led Johannesburg Herman] Mashaba, why not Solly [Msimanga – mayor of DA-led Tshwane]? Because the mayor of DA in PE is a white man. So, these people, when you want to hit them hard – go after a white man. They feel a terrible pain, because you have touched a white man.”

    He clarified that this did not mean the EFF would refrain from targeting Mashaba and Msimanga, adding that they would eventually be “touched”.

    “But we are starting with this whiteness. We are cutting the throat of whiteness. Trollip will not be a mayor after the 6th of April, if they give us that date,” he said.

    Reacting to these remarks about seven years later, Elon Musk, in a tweet made on Sunday, said Malema committed a serious crime and should be punished accordingly.

    “Immediate sanctions for Malema and declaration of him as an international criminal!” the Tesla CEO wrote.

    However, in a statement, the EFF dismissed Musk’s remarks as part of a broader imperialist agenda and accused him of meddling in South Africa’s domestic affairs.

    The EFF claims that his influence over the United States government has emboldened him to attack political leaders who oppose Western imperialism.

    The party maintains that Malema, known for his radical stance on land expropriation without compensation and African economic emancipation, has been unfairly labelled by Musk and other right-wing forces.

    EFF accused Musk of acting as a global “billionaire maniac” who seeks to manipulate governments for his own business interests. The party further stated that Musk’s alleged interference is an attempt to undermine South Africa’s sovereignty and weaken its relations with the United States.

    A screenshot of the fierce exchange between Musk and Malema on X.

    As a countermeasure, the EFF has vowed that Musk’s satellite internet service, Starlink, will not operate in South Africa unless it complies with local regulations, including a 30% local ownership requirement. The party also called for Musk’s enterprises to be rejected by progressive nations such as Russia, China, and India.

    The statement partly reads, “The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is not fazed by the declaration made by owner of X (formerly known as Twitter), Space X, Starlink, Tesla and recently the so-called director for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the United States of America, who has made a declaration that the President of the EFF Julius Malema must be declared an international criminal.

    “As part of the general hysteria that has overtaken governance in the United States of America (USA), Musk has assumed the role of a global billionaire maniac, whose grotesque wealth has overwhelmed him and made him think of himself as a supreme ruler of not only the Oval Office, but of all nations of the world.

    “The Commander in Chief and President of the EFF has been at the forefront of struggles for the African continent and the diaspora since his activism as a young person in the former liberation movement of South Africa. Central to his perspective not only on Economic Freedom and the emancipation of African people, has been a staunch opposition to Western imperialism and all of its manifestations.

    “It is therefore not surprising that Julius Malema would be declared an enemy by the global capitalist establishment, an agenda advanced by the likes of deranged individuals such as Elon Musk. However, the misconception and mischaracterization of the President of the EFF as genocidal is a sideshow that seeks to undermine the ideas which he represents.

    “The EFF and all people who have been at the yolk of oppression perpetuated by the USA and its allies are bound to naturally be the quintessential enemies of billionaires who capture states and manipulate narratives, and misuse their control of governments to cast aspersions against their natural enemies.

    “The EFF takes this opportunity to tell Elon Musk and all of his allies, in the USA, in Israel and the right wing groups in South Africa which have mobilized Musk, to collectively go to hell.

    “The principle remains that equality in South Africa is rooted in the return of the land to African people, and this will be achieved through expropriation without compensation. Additionally, the EFF makes a firm commitment that Elon Musk’s Starlink will never operate in South Africa, without complying to local legislation which demands that there must be 30% local ownership.

    “The offense that Musk has made against the leader of the EFF constitutes a meddling in our domestic affairs which we do not take lightly, and he must be viewed as an imperialist who seeks to undermine the economic and political sovereignty of South Africa through sanctions, and is part of mischievous attempts to severe relations between South Africa and the United States of America.

    “The EFF declare Elon Musk as an enemy of South Africa, and a capturer of governance in the USA who will lead to that nations downfall. All progressive nations, including Russia, China, India, and all African states ought to isolate and reject all enterprises pursued by Elon Musk in their nations.

    “Elon Musk has captured the Presidency of the USA and has weaponized his office as an instrument to pursue his business interests globally. His nefarious influence must be opposed and undermined by all nations which respect their sovereignty and seek to maintain independence.”

    “The EFF will not be cowed into submission, retreat nor capitulation from its principled and unwavering commitment to confront imperialism and its surrogates like Elon Musk anywhere and everywhere it rises its ugly head,” the statement added.