A South African court has found opposition politician Julius Malema guilty of hate speech for telling his supporters at a 2022 rally that they should “never be scared to kill.”
Malema, the firebrand leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, has long been criticised by South Africa’s white minority for his radical rhetoric and his singing of the anti-apartheid song “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer”, which some say incites anti-white violence.
He has been at the centre of tensions between Washington and Pretoria and featured prominently in a video that President Donald Trump showed in a meeting with his counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa in May to back claims of a “white targeting” in South Africa.
At a rally in 2022, Malema referred to a fight two years prior between members of his EFF party and white parents at a school accused of holding a whites-only dance party, telling his supporters that “killing is part of a revolutionary act.”
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