SACP to lay charges against Nicole Barlow, says her utterances 'cannot be taken lightly'

The South African Communist Party (SACP) on Monday said it had resolved to lay charges against Nicole Barlow, who made racially divisive comments against minister Gwede Mantashe over the weekend. 

This in reaction to a tweet by environmental campaigner and author Nicole Barlow on Sunday, with a comment she made on a story by the Sunday Times about Mantashe ditching President Cyril Ramaphosa’s event to attend a Cosatu event in Boksburg instead.

She commented: “We missed an opportunity to do a Chris Hani on him.”

SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila said: “Given what happened to Chris Hani, we cannot take the utterances lightly.

"Nicole Barlow implicated herself in what happened to Chris Hani, the SACP general secretary who was assassinated in cold blood on April 10 1993. This also suggests they, the 'We…' in her tweet, '… missed an opportunity to do' the same on Mantashe," Mapaila added. 

AfriForum says when it comes to racial issues, South Africa had double standards because if a racially divisive comment made was made by a black person, it would not cause an uproar.

Ernst Roets, AfriForum's deputy CEO, said though Barlow's comment was not justified, she had deleted the tweet and apologised.

“This thing happening in South Africa if a white person says something like this it’s huge. I see people making comments on farm murders, but it doesn’t make headlines. We have double standards when it comes to racism," said Roets. 

“There’s a narrative being created that white people are racists and black people are not. Black people can be racist too.

“I don’t think we are ever justified to make comments like that. We don’t ever have a reason to romanticise murder. We should have a certain level of constraint when it comes to these issues,” Roets added. 

The Institute of Race Relations’ Michael Morris said it was doubtful people who say nasty or thoughtless things on social media always deserve or warrant attention from serious media.

“It’s fair to say that anyone, whatever their skin colour, who thinks it’s acceptable to approve of assassination will justifiably be regarded as morally and intellectually decrepit by the vast majority of South Africans.

“By and large, in this case and others like it, the popular reaction suggests that free speech in South Africa is in good – public – hands. This is, ultimately, the best and most reliable counter to brutish ideas whenever they crop up from time to time,” said Morris.

The South African Human Rights Commission (Sahrc) said it had received complaints pertaining the tweet, which on the face of it appears to be hate speech.  

“The commission notes that the number of hate speech utterances made on Twitter and other social media platforms continue to increase, which is of great concern to us.

“The commission is currently assessing the case. The outcome of the assessment will determine the commission's next step,” said Wisani Baloyi, Sahrc spokesperson.

“The perception of anonymity on social media creates the idea that there will be no recourse against those who make utterance. This is, however, not the case and the commission has had a lot of success in holding perpetrators of social media hate speech to account.

“A case of crimen injuria may also be opened at a local police station by members of the public."

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