The words “dubula ibhunu” (shoot the boer) were declared incitement to murder in a judgment handed down in the High Court in Johannesburg on Monday.
In his order, Judge Leon Halgryn said “… the publication and chanting of the words 'dubula ibhunu', prima facie satisfies the crime of incitement to murder”.
This judgment is separate to the ongoing hate speech case by Afriforum against ANCYL president Julius Malema after he sang the words several times last year. This case relates to two members of the Society for the Protection of Your Constitution.
One member Mahomed Vawda planned to sing it at an anti-crime march in Mpumalanga last year. The other member Willem Harmse was opposed to this.
Eventually the two reached an agreement and without much press fanfare secured a settlement order prohibiting the singing of the words.
The ANC then applied for leave to appeal and to intervene, hence Monday's judgment.
In Halgryn's latest judgment he turned down the ANC's application for leave to appeal against his order on March 26 last year, amends the order adding the words “to commit murder” after his original finding that it was incitement, and ordered that a copy of his judgment be forwarded to the Law Society for it to investigate the conduct of the lawyer who represented the two men.
Willie Spies, a lawyer for Afriforum who had also applied to intervene in the appeal application, told Sapa this effectively prohibits the singing of these lyrics by anybody and makes it a crime. - Sapa