AfriForum says it will help any person to open criminal charges after it laid hate speech charges yesterday against 12 people following comments on social media. The organisation laid charges of incitement to murder‚ incitement to violence‚ and crimen injuria at the Lyttleton police station in Pretoria‚ after it had collected complaints from various people, says a TimesLIVE report.

AfriForum spokesperson Ernst Roets said he couldn't reveal who had been charged‚ but that the charges were linked to comments made on social media inciting people to commit acts of violence and murder against white people. ‘The typical comments come from statements made on Facebook and Twitter. Things like 'all white people should be killed‚ white people's property should be burnt down‚ white people are the enemy and their wives should be raped'‚’ he said.

‘Others are political statements like 'kill the boer‚ kill the farmer' or 'one settler‚ one bullet'‚’ Roets said. ‘We didn't open cases for hate speech. In other words‚ we didn't open cases where people made racist comments such as 'white people are stupid'‚’ he said. ‘We only looked at the strongest cases‚ for now at least.’ Roets said the organisation was willing to help any person open a case if asked.

Full TimesLIVE report