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S. Africa to introduce legislation to address racism: minister

Xinhua, April 20, 2016 Adjust font size:

South Africa will soon introduce legislation which will address racism and hate speech in particular, Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Michael Masutha said on Tuesday.

The government is currently expanding the provisions of the draft bill which will be introduced in parliament later this year, he said in Parliament while delivering his budget speech.

This will help bolster existing legislative measures notably under the promotion of equality and prevention of unfair n discrimination act and other related laws, the minister said.

There have been growing calls for introducing legislation to deal with racism and hate speech following a racial storm early this year which saw some whites making anti-black comments and some blacks spreading hatred toward the whites on the social media.

The legislation will be amongst the concrete measures the government is embarking upon to give expression to President Jacob Zuma's call during his State of the Nation Address for the nation to focus its human rights promotion efforts this year towards the fight against racism, Masutha said.

The introduction of the legislation was in line with late President Nelson Mandela's signing of the Constitution in 1996, where he set the country on a path to build a society that respects constitutional rights and in the process, dismantling apartheid laws characterized by racial oppression, intolerance and discrimination of the majority of the citizens by the minority, said Masutha.

"In this spirit, we must all rise to deal with all forms of intolerances to consolidate our democracy.

"As a department, we will soon introduce legislation which will address racism and in particular, hate speech," he said.

The government, he said, has also developed and released with Cabinet's approval the draft National Action Plan (NAP) to combat racism, xenophobia and related intolerances for public comment.

Many sectors of society are already coming forward to share their views on the draft NAP, he said.

Masutha encouraged all South Africans to make their inputs to the draft plan. Enditem