South African opposition leader Julius Malema has once again been found guilty of hate speech, this time over remarks he made during a rally in 2022. The Equality Court ruled that Malema’s comments amounted to incitement, marking the third time the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader has faced such a judgment.
The case, brought by the South African Human Rights Commission, focused on a speech in Cape Town where Malema told supporters that “revolutionaries must not be scared to kill” and suggested that racist acts should be met with deadly retaliation. The court said his words represented “a clear intention to incite harm” and went beyond acceptable political expression.
Punishment has not yet been determined, but Malema could be ordered to issue a public apology, pay compensation, or face criminal referral.
The EFF dismissed the ruling as a misrepresentation of history and political discourse, insisting that Malema’s words were metaphorical and linked to South Africa’s liberation struggle. “This decision is fundamentally flawed and deliberately misreads both the context and the meaning of the speech,” the party said in a statement.
Malema, a former ANC Youth League leader expelled in 2012, has long been a polarizing figure. His party advocates land redistribution without compensation and the nationalisation of mines — policies many white South Africans view as threatening, but which supporters argue address lingering inequalities from apartheid.
This is not the first time Malema has been accused of hate speech. He was found guilty in 2009 for disparaging a woman who accused then-President Jacob Zuma of rape, and in 2011 for singing “Kill the Boer,” a liberation-era song seen by some as incitement against white farmers. That ruling was later overturned in 2022 when a court accepted that the song had metaphorical meaning.
The latest case comes amid heightened tensions in South Africa’s relations with the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly cited Malema as evidence of alleged discrimination against whites, a claim South African officials have strongly rejected. Pretoria’s foreign minister this week accused Washington of “apartheid 2.0” over a new U.S. refugee program that grants preferential entry to Afrikaners.
Malema’s EFF, which won 39 seats in parliament in the 2024 elections, remains outside the governing coalition but continues to draw controversy at home and abroad.