Pretoria - Right-wing group Front National has pressed charges relating to hate speech against Stellenbosch artist Johan Pieters for branding as “white k*****s” those whites who protested against the defacing of the Paul Kruger statue on Church Square in April.
Front National leader Wessel Basson opened a case at the Equality Court in Pretoria on Friday. He was accompanied by the party’s legal representative Marius Coertze.
Coertze previously represented the late Chris Hani’s assassin Clive Derby-Lewis in his bid to be granted medical parole until the latter ditched him for another lawyer.
Basson said the group had opened a case against Pieters for allegedly “manipulating” pictures of protesters on Church Square and using them in a YouTube video labelled “Die Wit K*****s Van Afrika”. The group regards the video as “offensive”.
Basson said the video was detestable because it showed Steve Hofmeyr, Sunette Bridges and Dan Roodt appearing in the clip in the same context as the convicted criminal Johan Kotze, also known as the Modimolle Monster.
The video with a running time of two minutes and 59 seconds contains the song called Die Wit K*****s van Afrika playing in the background, synchronised with the protesters’ pictures. The song was produced by Afrikaans pop artist Anton Goosen in 1996. The controversial video clip, released about a month ago, had already recorded upwards of 10 400 views by Saturday.
Coertze said the case against Pieters hinged on the fact that the human dignity of his clients had been “insulted”. Basson continued to “suffer”ridiculing remarks from the people who’d “jokingly” refer to him as a “wit k*****”, he said.
He called on people to desist from “racist name-calling”, irrespective of whether it was being directed at blacks or whites.
The artwork of Pieters served no purpose “except to divide racial groups while society is working towards harmony”, he said.
He expressed shock at the fact that Pieters who apparently projected himself “as a white liberal had been able to provoke the Afrikaner community”.
Initially the group had said it wanted to lay a case relating to hate speech against Goosen as well. However, on Friday it appeared to have changed its tune.
Coertze said Goosen “had done nothing wrong”. It appeared as if Pieters had used the song in a video clip without his knowledge.
“The k-word is a taboo and in terms of the Equality Court it is forbidden. The word directly diminishes any person’s human dignity. The Constitution guarantees that people be treated equally,” he said.
When Goosen released the song “there was no brouhaha” about it, said Coertze. The original video of the song contained one static sketch of a bushman on a rock.
Two weeks ago the group had called for people hurt by the video and who wanted to be party to the case, to contact their lawyer. However, there were no other complainants except that of Basson and Coertze, who said he hoped people would come to demonstrate when the trial finally gets under way.
Coertze said he would wait for Pieters to be served with summons ordering him to appear in court. The court wants to obtain the video clip before it can set the trial date, he said. “I expect the trial date to be in August or September,” he said.
Coertze wants a guilty verdict and Pieters punished by “either giving a penalty in the form of a fine or a suspended sentence”.
Pretoria News