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SAHRC says Magor must pay restitution for her racist ‘kill blacks’ rant

R150,000 must be given to an organisation advancing reconciliation and diversity

Belinda Magor.
Belinda Magor.
Image: Facebook

The SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) wants the white woman who in a racist rant said black women must have their uteruses cut to pay R150,000 to an organisation advancing reconciliation and diversity.

The demand for R150k to an organisation is one of several prayers the commission has put before the Equality Court in Johannesburg.

These include Belinda Magor issuing an unconditional and written apology to black South Africans for her hate speech and not repeat the racist utterance on social media and public platforms.

In court papers filed in court, the commission described Belinda Magor as a defender of racial discrimination.

“The history of SA is rooted in racial discrimination against black people through an entrenched racist system that was harmful and hateful.

“The effects of that system still persist and the respondent [Belinda Magor] is a proponent or defender of that outlawed system and central aspects that under[lay] it and on which it was based,” said commissioner Andre Guam in his founding affidavit.

The commission approached the court to force Magor to apologise publicly for her comments, which were sent to a WhatsApp group.

This comes after Magor refused to make a public apology as per the commission’s demand following the incident.

In November 2022, Magor sent a one-minute, seven seconds voice note to a WhatsApp group “Pit bulls be my voice”, saying: “Estelle, I agree with you wholeheartedly. What I say is: ban the black man. They rape, they steal, they kill, worse than any pit bull could, and they get away with it.

“Ban those who are making the laws, ban Ekurhuleni, ban the black man. Get all the black women and cut out their uteruses and their ovaries [so] that they can’t procreate, because they will all turn out the same because they are all the same.”

She continued that animals were better than black people and deserved a warm bed, food and love as they were created by God.

“Who created the black man? Do you think God? I don’t think so,” she said.

Gaum said Magors utterances constituted hate speech and unfair discrimination.

“It is irrefutable that the respondent’s utterances refer to a racial group and black women. It is demeaning and dehumanising to compare people with animals, more so when the view is that they are inferior to animals... 

“The respondent’s statement clearly shows that she holds beliefs of racial superiority of white people and racial inferiority of black people,” Guam said.

The nature of her utterances and conduct created an environment of hate and harm and have the effect of pitting violence between those who are harmed and those whom she is instigating to harm others.

Gaum said Magor, despite a public outrage, never denied making the utterances. However, in a media interview she squarely blamed her medical condition of diabetes.

He said black males have often been labelled as monstrous rapists.

This perpetuates the stereotype that black men are bad people in society who must be banned. Therefore, by saying ban the black man because they rape, steal and kill, the respondent is a perpetuating the stereotype that black men are monsters, said Gaum.

He said Magor reduced black women’s bodies to things that could be cut up, with their body parts cut up, which incites harm against them.

In a country that grapples with the scourge of gender-based violence, such utterances are not only insensitive and disgusting but should be viewed as promoting violence against women.

Gaum said for Magors statement to be widely circulated and consumed by many people, pointed to the degree of harm that it caused.

Vicky Momberg and Adam Catzavelos’ matters are two precedent setting cases on crimen injuria.

Momberg was in 2018 found guilty of four counts of crimen injuria for racially abusing a police officer two years earlier.

She was sentenced to three years, suspended for one year.

Catzavelos’ conviction came after he posted a video denigrating black South Africans. It was posted in 2018 and he was in Greece at the time.

In 2020, he was fined R50,000 or two years imprisonment. However, these were wholly suspended for five years.


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