The lobby group AfriForum’s head of policy Ernst Roets has described as “crazy” the the Nelson Mandela Foundation‘s call for him to be jailed.
The foundation on Friday said it wanted a jail term for Roets after he displayed the apartheid-era national flag on Twitter.
It said it would file an urgent application in the High Court in Johannesburg to declare Roets’ actions in contempt of court.
It came after the Equality Court which was sitting in the High Court ruled that the gratuitous display of the old flag constituted hate speech, harassment and unfair discrimination.
AfriForum had opposed the foundation’s application to declare the gratuitous display of the flag hate speech. Roets says freedom of speech is under serious threat in South Africa.
“The fact that you shouldn’t do something or the fact that something is a bad idea does not mean that you should be banned by law from doing it or that you should be prosecuted if you do that. I mean the Nelson Mandela have said in their papers that there’s talk about imprisonment. So, we’ve reached a point where we talk about imprisoning staff for tweeting staff. We should also protest banning, censorship and the violation of the freedom of speech.”
