THE EFF, its leader Julius Malema and the party's MP and former national spokesperson Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi are expected to start giving evidence at the Equality Court case brought by AfriForum from Wednesday.
AfriForum has hauled the EFF and its leaders to the court, sitting at the South Gauteng High Court, over their singing of the old anti-apartheid Struggle song Dubul’ibhunu (Shoot the boer) outside the Senekal Magistrate’s Court in 2020 during the bail hearing of the men previously accused of murdering Free State farm manager Brendin Horner.
Presiding Judge Edwin Molahlehi yesterday heard that the EFF and its leaders' witnesses would give evidence from Wednesday until Friday.
“The respondents (EFF, Malema and Ndlozi) will call their witnesses from Wednesday, Thursday and Friday,” said Judge Molahlehi.
AfriForum wants the court to declare that the song constitutes hate speech. The organisation wants the Equality Court to determine whether the words uttered by Malema and Ndlozi warrant criminal prosecution for contempt of court in terms of the apartheid-era Riotous Assemblies Act and crimen injuria.
Judge Molahlehi yesterday heard evidence of two witnesses who have been victims of farm attacks.
AfriForum's witness, Duncan Prinsloo, told the court that his family were attacked by young black men in KwaZulu-Natal. Prinsloo's wife died during the attack.
“These people can jump and jive on the food that the farmers grow,“ he said in his emotional testimony.
The EFF, Malema and Ndlozi’s lawyer, advocate Mfesane ka-Siboto, asked: “Who are ’these people’?”
In his response, Prinsloo said: “It's young black boys”.
Ka-Siboto demanded that Prinsloo describe his term “these people”.
"It was the young men that attacked us at our house," he said.
Ka-Siboto further quizzed Prinsloo on the Struggle song.
“How do you know your attackers were influenced by the song?”
Prinsloo answered: “I don't know”.
Ka-Siboto maintained that the motive for the attack was robbery and that the attackers' intention was to rob.
However, Prinsloo disagreed: “I don't agree. I can’t really say that I feel the intention was to rob,” he said.
According to Prinsloo, the attackers just came to his family farm and shot and killed his wife.
Ka-Siboto said there was no evidence that the attack was racially motivated.
Asked by ka-Siboto whether he felt there was a racial element to the attack, Prinsloo said: “Racially, I don't think so ... I can’t say it was racially motivated".
He admitted that there was no evidence that the attackers were motivated by the “kiss the boer” song, which the EFF adapted from the contentious “kill the boer”.
POLITICAL BUREAU