Democratic Alliance (DA) youth leader Luyolo Mphiti says they will fight fiercely against racism in South Africa.
The party has launched a petition to prevent members of the Black First Land First (BLF) from participating in the forthcoming elections. This follows comments by BLF Spokesperson, Lindsay Maasdoorp who tweeted that the deaths of the four children who died in the Hoërskool Driehoek tragedy “should be celebrated”.
Mphiti says they have approached the South African Human Rights Commission to investigate the remarks of the BLF.
“What we are saying as the DA is that there’s no humanity to celebrate the death of any person. This is why we approach to the Human Rights Commission to submit a complaint asking them to investigate because the moment that we let racism and intolerance run a mockery in our country then unfortunately, tomorrow we’ll be saying crazier things than we are hearing today. It is not about race. It’s about the humanity of the people that have died in the particular situation,” says Mphiti.
Meanwhile Black First Land First says the outrage caused by a racist comment made about the children who died in the tragedy is misguided and being used by political parties to cast the BLF as “blood hungry”.
BLF leader Andile Mngxitama says they will hold a press briefing on the issue on Tuesday.
“BLF will call a press conference tomorrow where we will give a complete response and context of the tweet by the spokesperson. However we want to assure South Africans we are not a party which is blood thirsty. Our opponents always try to project us in this manner. The context and we will explain tomorrow as you will see if you look at the original tweet and the tweet that Lindsay was responding to there’s no celebration of death there. We want schools that are safe for all our children not just the white children.”
