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Have your say on the Hate Speech Bill

STATEMENTS FROM OTHERS

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In the Media

National Assembly Legislation. ACDP MP, Steve Swart, speaks on the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill [B9D–2018].

An update on the Hate Speech Bill following Parliament passing the Bill on 5 December 2023. Only the DA, FF+ and ACDP voted against the Bill. The Bill will now go to the President to be signed into law and once signed, will be enforceable. To recap, the Bill proposes criminalising hate speech – which the Bill (in simple language) defines as an expression that (1) incites harm, and (2) promotes or propagates hatred against (3) a group of people specifically listed in the Bill. If you are convicted, you can be sent to jail for up to 5 years.

In this video, FOR SA’s Daniela Ellerbeck gives a brief update on the Bill where deliberations continued today.

In this video, FOR SA’s Legal Advisors, Liesl Pretorius and Daniela Ellerbeck, discuss the Hate Speech Bill.

Memorandum of Objects

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The Prevention and Combatting of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill

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Encourage Participation – download and distribute this notice

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Freedom of Religion SA (FOR SA)

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Freedom of Religion SA (FOR SA)

TEMPLATE PROVIDED BY FOR SA

I strongly oppose the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill [B9B – 2018], which I believe to be unconstitutional and unnecessary, for the following reasons:

  1. The Bill violates our constitutional rights as religious persons to express our religious beliefs without fear of punishment or persecution (section 15, read with section 16). Increasingly, around the world but also in South Africa, various holy scriptures (particularly on contentious issues) are regarded as “politically incorrect” or “offensive”, allegedly causing emotional and/or social harm.
  2. I specifically oppose the Bill’s:
    1. wide definition of “harm” (in Clause 1);
    2. the failure to define “hatred” (in Clause 1); and
    3. definition of, and creation of, the crime of “hate speech” (in Clause 4).
  3. The creation of the crime of “hate speech” for saying / distributing something which could possibly be construed as “harmful”, will have certain unintended consequences, namely the criminalisation of good / well-meaning people who will be prosecuted for saying what they sincerely believe (according to their holy texts) and sent to jail.
  4. There are already sufficient existing laws dealing with “hate speech”.
  5. For all of the reasons given, I ask:
    1. For the scrapping of the “hate speech” sections from the Bill altogether;
    2. Alternatively, should the “hate speech” provisions remain part of the Bill, we ask:
      1. That “harm” be defined as: “gross emotional and psychological detriment that objectively and severely undermines the human dignity of the targeted group”; and
      2. That “hatred” be defined as: “strong and deeply-felt emotions of enmity, ill-will, detestation, malevolence and vilification against members of an identifiable group, that implies that members of that group are to be despised, scorned, denied respect and subjected to ill-treatment based on their group affiliation”.
    3. That Clause 4(2)(d) (the “religious exemption clause”) be strengthened as follows to protect:
      “expression of any religious conviction, tenet, belief, teaching, doctrine or writings, by a religious organisation or an individual, in public or in private, to the extent that such expression does not actively support, instigate, exhort, or call for extreme detestation, vilification, enmity, ill-will and malevolence that constitutes incitement to cause gross emotional and psychological harm that severely undermines the dignity of the targeted group, based on race, ethnicity, gender, religion or sexual orientation”.