The Congress of the People (Cope) has called on AfriForum chief executive Kallie Kriel to withdraw a statement he made that there were not enough people killed during apartheid to justify it being called a crime against humanity.

"The Congress of the People rejects with contempt the AfriForum CEO Kallie Kriel's recent comments and we urge him to withdraw the statement and never again teach South Africans‚ black and white‚ that apartheid was not a crime against humanity‚" said Cope president Mosiuoa Lekota.

"The United Nations guided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and reports about how black South Africans were treated by the apartheid regime concluded that apartheid was indeed a crime against humanity."

Last week Kriel compared the number of people killed under the regime to the six million Jews murdered under Adolf Hitler. He caused much anger when he told 702 Radio talkshow host Eusebius McKaiser that he did not believe that apartheid was a crime against humanity.

"The figure we have is that 600 people were killed in the '90s. In the '80s and early '90s‚ people died during the people's war conducted by the ANC‚" Kriel said. Asked how many deaths would warrant apartheid to be classified as a crime against humanity‚ Kriel said: "A decision to eradicate people by Adolf Hitler."