Kunene has been ordered to apologise to Malema.
The Johannesburg High Court has ruled that Patriotic Alliance (PA) deputy president Kenny Kunene’s use of the word “cockroach” when describing EFF leader Julius Malema is hate speech.
In January 2022, Malema filed papers with the Equality Court demanding that Kunene retract and apologise for calling him a cockroach on TV in November 2021.
Kunene was responding to Malema’s comments in which he referred to Kunene as a “pantiti” when he threatened to expose the EFF leader for who he is, calling him a “cockroach” and “criminal”, among other names.
He told eNCA at the time: “I think it’s pure bitterness and jealousy. Julius has gone on to call us these names for a very long time. We have really tried to be mature and not respond to him. I’m going to deal with this little frog. Julius is just an irritating cockroach that I must now deal with publicly. I will call the press and begin to show you that Julius, whatever he criticises, he is.
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“Julius is a criminal and I’m going to show South Africans the crimes he has been involved in. I’m going to tell South Africans why I left the EFF because of this cockroach. So I’m going to deal with this cockroach because we have given him time and respect. He’s got his issues, he hates himself and now he hates everybody else. He also went for the TG of the ANC, he gets personal in politics. We have stood back, but now it’s over. When I meet him, he must tell me that I’m a pantiti in my face.”
Malema court papers
In court papers, Malema argued that Kunene’s description of him using the words “little frog” and “cockroach”, and his refusal to apologise, means the PA leader thinks the EFF leader deserves “sub-human treatment”.
“His attack on me and the use of that term, especially, was deliberate and intentional,” argued Malema.
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The term was used to justify inhumane treatment meted out on the Tutsis by the Hutus during the Rwandan genocide and became popularised as more politicians used it.
The term, according to Malema, was used to “other” the Tutsis as sub-human.
As a result, the comment should be seen as hate speech as defined by the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act.
According to Malema, it was equally important that the respondents were his political opponents, and also of a different ethnic group from him.
Malema used former speaker of parliament Baleka Mbete in his argument that Kunene should have apologised for using the term if he meant no harm to him.
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Mbete called Malema a cockroach during a provincial elective conference in North West 2015.
She later apologised for it.
“South Africa’s polity is not immune to such instances, but unlike with Mr Kunene, most of those who uttered the offensive term apologised for it. Mr Kunene has stubbornly refused to do so. This is why I now turn to the courts,” argues the EFF leader.
Kunene’s court losses
Kunene lost his case at the Equality Court and again in the High Court, which delivered the judgment on Tuesday.
The high court dismissed his appeal with costs, including the costs of two counsel.
It upheld the Equality Court’s ruling that Kunene’s use of the word “cockroach” to describe Malema amounted to hate speech in contravention of section 10 of the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act 4 of 2000.
Kunene is interdicted and restrained from describing Malema as a “cockroach” in future.
He was ordered to issue an unconditional written and oral public apology to Malema. The apology must unequivocally retract the use of the word “cockroach” to describe the EFF leader.
Kunene’s written and oral apology must be published within one month of the date of the order.
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