He was rightly condemned and as the act of hate speech was committed on foreign soil, Greek law will take effect. Police spokesperson Colonel Brenda Muridili stated as follows, “the offence was committed in a foreign country, so you can’t prosecute him in South Africa”.

Legislation against hate crimes and speech was introduced into Greek law in late 2013, when Parliament, “passed the latest draft of its anti-discrimination law on September 9. The law bolsters the country’s decades-old hate crimes legislation, handing out three-year prison terms and levying fines of between $38 000 to $125 000 for instigating racism, and inciting violence, respectively” (Al-Jazeera, 16 October 2014). Consequences for Catzavelous – legal, familial and economic – may prove costly for him and will hopefully enable a heartfelt process of reflection and redress.

Like Catzavelous, Julius Malema’s latest missive against a section of the South African population must be condemned and stern censure and action must follow. At an EFF media briefing on 23 August 2018, Malema made a claim that right-wing extremists were being trained to kill black people. His statement, with no evidence to support it, was as follows, “there’s a group of right-wingers who are being trained by Jews in Pretoria to be snipers”. While the public may have become inured to Malema’s racist rants against white, Indian and Jewish people, we do ourselves a grave injustice by not demanding justice and accountability for hate crimes and hate speech committed by him.

Racism from any quarter, intended to harm and brutalise must come with the requisite consequences, legal and criminal. Racist statements and behaviours, whatever the race, gender or ethnicity of perpetrators, must come with costs, costs that must act as a deterrent.

By Ms Zohra Dawood, Director

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