summary

view the campaign

View a report on the participation

coming soon

Public comments as delivered to parliament 

Download [23.11 MB]

STATEMENTS FROM CIVIL ORGANISATIONS

Click on a logo to view.

Click to view ForSA's statement
Free Speech Union South Africa
click to view a statement from Same Love Toti
click to view a statement fro Pastor Strike

Want to display your organisation’s statement? Click here. 

OBJECTS OF BILL
The primary aim of the Bill is to create the offences of hate crimes and hate speech and to put in place measures to prevent and combat these offences.

FOR SA’s Legal Advisor, Liesl Pretorius, discusses the concerns with criminalising speech in a democracy. Such criminalisation is proposed by the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill. The Bill proposes criminalising expressions it deems to be “hate speech”, suggesting jail sentence of up to eight (8) years.

FOR SA’s Legal Advisor, Liesl Pretorius, discusses the failure to define “hatred” in the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill. The Bill proposes criminalising expressions it deems to be “hate speech” suggesting jail sentence of up to eight (8) years.

FOR SA’s Legal Advisor, Liesl Pretorius, discusses the wide definition of “harm” in the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill. Harm is one of the elements for an expression to be deemed to be “hate speech” by the Bill.

FOR SA’s Legal Advisor, Daniela Ellerbeck, discusses how the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill will make it easier for you to be found guilty of the crime of hate speech and go to jail, than to be ordered to apologise or pay a fine under the Equality Act

FOR SA’s Legal Advisor, Daniela Ellerbeck, discusses how the version of the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill currently in front of Parliament, is a throwback to Apartheid-era legislation which saw the State censor speech and jail people.

FOR SA’s Legal Advisor, Daniela Ellerbeck, discusses how the version of the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill currently in front of Parliament, fails to protect religious speech adequately.

Same Love Toti — Talk about The Prevention and Combatting of Hate Crime and Hate Speech Bill

BACKGROUND
The founding provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, in section 1, set out certain basic values, amongst others, human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms and non-racialism and non-sexism. The Bill of Rights, in section 9 of the Constitution, prohibits direct or indirect unfair discrimination against anyone on the grounds set out in section 9(3) of the Constitution, namely, race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth. The Bill of Rights, in section 10, gives everyone the right to dignity and, in section 12, gives everyone the right to freedom and security of the person, which includes the right to be free from all forms of violence from either public or private sources. In section 16, the Bill of Rights gives everyone the right to freedom of expression. This right is, however, limited in that it does not extend to propaganda for war, incitement to imminent violence or advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, which constitutes incitement to cause harm. The State must, in terms of section 7(2) of the Constitution, ‘‘respect, protect, promote and fulfil the rights in the Bill of Rights’’. 

It is against this backdrop that the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill (‘‘the Bill’’) has its origins. The Bill is intended to address frequently occurring and sometimes violent conduct of persons who are motivated by clear and defined prejudices.

Summary – Memorandum of Objects

Download [36.64 KB]

The Bill

Download [45.36 KB]

Schedule

Download [38.02 KB]

Encourage participation with this poster/flyer – distribute or place at the office

Download [191.75 KB]

In the media

en English
af Afrikaansen Englishst Sesothoxh Xhosazu Zulufr Frenchpt Portuguese
Close

Bold Moves Radio

visit Bold Moves Radio here

Close

Same Love Toti

Same Love Toti is a LGBTQI+ human rights based organisation — visit their website here

Serving on the steering committee for the Hate Crimes Working Group, they are one of many contributors to the content and the wording of this bill. Research on hate and bias started in 2009, data collection stretched from 2013-2017, with many debates with relevant communities and government departments.

The bill was submitted in 2018 and allowed to lapse, and it was re-submitted where finally this year it was passed by the National Assembly.

Now it is with the National Council of Provinces who have sent it out for public comment, and the deadline is 22nd May 2023.

This is our last chance to have our say. Our last chance to make our voices heard.

We need the bill because vulnerable groups are being targeted. The body count is constantly rising, coupled with secondary victimisation,
exacerbated by a general lack of respect for diversity and the individual’s right to self-determination.

There are 4 parts to this bill: Prevention, justice, hate crime and hate speech.

    1. The prevention part lays the onus on the state to educate the public about the need for diversity and respect of human rights in all areas of society.
    2. The justice part lays the responsibility on the state to take a strong stand against bias, and ensure the safety of those within its jurisdiction.
    3. The hate crime part lays out the legal consequences of violence and human rights abuses, based in bias against any of the protected groups.
    4. The hate speech part addresses non-physical forms of human rights abuses and the legal consequences thereof.

This bill will cause the state to drive awareness campaigns, train government officials, SAPS, the judiciary, medical personnel and other stakeholders,
how to implement the bill and how to ensure the dignity of each individual is respected. Essentially it will increase social cohesion and acceptance of
those who are different in any way.

This bill will also provide justice to the victims of hate crime and hate speech, and demonstrate the state’s commitment to our constitutional ideals.
Some have voiced concerns over freedom of speech and freedom of religion being threatened, but this is unfounded. All freedoms are protected in this bill.

We also need this bill in South Africa to gather statistical data which will then allow for strategic planning to eliminate discrimination and bias in the country.

Submit your own emails to HateCrimesBill9B-2018@parliament.gov.za or add your name to our submission on samelovetoti@gmail.com

Show your support for this bill. It’s time to make your voice heard!”

Close

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”.