Who and what is AfriForum?

AfriForum is an Afrikaans civil rights organisation that protects the rights of minority groups at national as well as provincial level, and anyone who can identify with AfriForum’s principles and objectives may join the organisation. AfriForum’s community plan focuses on mobilising communities to thus take control of their own streets and neighbourhoods again. AfriForum ensures that your constitutional and civil rights are recognised and protected at national level.

Wie en wat is AfriForum?

AfriForum is ’n Afrikaanse burgerregteorganisasie wat die regte van minderheidsgroepe op sowel nasionale as provinsiale vlak beskerm, en enigiemand wat met AfriForum se beginsels en doelstellings kan identifiseer, mag by die organisasie aansluit. AfriForum se gemeenskapsplan fokus daarop om gemeenskappe te mobiliseer om só weer beheer terug te neem oor hul eie strate en woonbuurtes. AfriForum verseker dat jou grondwetlike én burgerregte op nasionale vlak erken en beskerm word.

Police Minister, Senzo Mchunu, owes Bergview College Principal and the public an apology – Minister will face criminal consequences

Media statement also available in: isiXhosa

For a week, Police Minister, Senzo Mchunu, sat idle as false and defamatory statements, made worse by his own false claims made in a press statement, were repeated and amplified across social media and news organisations. AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit, which represents Bergview College principal Jaco Pieterse, will now advise and guide him to ensure criminal accountability for those who repeated these claims. The principal was publicly pilloried based on the ficticious claim he had obstructed a police investigation into the rape of a child who attended the school.

Mchunu had the knowledge and the authority to set the record straight, but opted instead to remain silent. He owes Pieterse and the public an apology. “The conviction of an innocent person by social media detectives and prominent individuals seeking political gain should never be allowed to happen and overshadow those authorised to impose the rule of law. It is impossible to defend against a frenzy of baseless, uninformed allegations when the key to setting the record straight remains silent,” said Advocate Gerrie Nel, head of the unit, in a letter to the police ministry and South African Police Service (SAPS) management.

Among those identified for prosecution are Mchunu, ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula, Eastern Cape education MEC Fundile Gade, and EFF leader Julius Malema. If the National Prosecuting Authoirity declines to prosecute these cases, the unit will proceed with private prosecutions.

On Saturday, 29 March, the unit issued a media statement making it clear that “Pieterse is not a suspect in the rape case nor have the police ever regarded him as a suspect.” Hours later, Mchunu issued a statement wherein he stated “three individuals, including the school Principal, (have been) identified as suspects. All outstanding statements have since been obtained by the Investigating Officer. DNA tests have also been conducted.”

It is now publicly known that Mchunu was wrong and AfriForum was right, but this was seemingly too politically unpalatable for the Minister to concede. It took Mchunu six days before making a poor attempt at conceding he had falsely claimed Pieterse was a suspect. Even then, he did not state outright that he misled the public, which prompted another media statement in response to public claims he had lied about Pieterse providing a DNA sample.

It was only on Monday, 7 April, that SAPS spokesperson, Brigadier Athlenda Mathe stated unequivocally on Radio 702 that the “principal was never identified as a person of interest in this particular case. From the statements that were taken, the principal was nowhere near that school in the three of four days that we are concentrating on.” She further articulated that there was no basis to request a buccal sample from Pieterse.

Nel said the police’s failure to set the record straight has caused untold harm to the principal and the school’s community. “The police have a Constitutional duty to prevent, combat and investigate crime. It also must maintain public order and protect the public. The SAPS and the Police Ministry have failed at both these duties. This failure and the contributing disinformation campaign by at least the Minister of Police has turned an innocent man’s life upside down and exposed him to an ordeal of undeserved life-threatening exposure. Bergview College, its staff, the learners and their parents became collateral damage in an entirely avoidable, smear campaign.

“Our endeavours to ensure that there are consequences for those who, for political gain, make defamatory remarks with the intention to defame an innocent person will not wane,” Nel concluded.