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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. 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!”

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”.