Black First Land First (BLF) spokesperson Lindsay Maasdorp has been ordered by the equality court to delete any offending statements from his social media feeds and not to advocate for the killing of, or violence against, any group in SA.

The SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) said on Friday it had instituted proceedings in the Western Cape High Court, sitting as the equality court, against Maasdorp in response to complaints about alleged hate speech on social media.

The allegations include:

• on September 24 2016 on his Facebook page, during a conversation in relation to white people in SA, he posed the question, “When will we kill them?”;
• on September 25 2016, on his Twitter page, he wrote: “I have aspirations to kill white people, and this must be achieved”; and
• on December 14 2018 he published a statement on Twitter celebrating the murder of an elderly white couple, to which he tweeted “ratio: ‘5:1’”. This referred to an earlier statement by a member of the BLF movement that five white people should be killed for every one black person killed.

“The equality court heard the commission’s application and on February 17 handed down judgment. [Maasdorp] is ordered to delete any remaining offending statements from all his social media accounts and is interdicted from publishing any statements that advocate for the killing of or any form of violence against any group in SA,” the commission said.

“He is further directed to undergo sensitivity and diversity training at a suitable institution, which training must be completed by December 2022. [He] must also pay the sheriff’s fees incurred by the SAHRC.

“The commission believes this is an important judgment that goes a long way towards the commission’s goal of eradicating all forms of hate speech on racial or other grounds.”

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