Manyi ordered to remove social media posts

The Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) yesterday ordered ANN7 and The New Age owner Mzwanele Manyi to remove social media posts he made against billionaire entrepreneur Magda Wierzycka within 24 hours. Acting Judge Fiona Dippenaar granted an interim order which interdicted Manyi from making‚ publishing‚ retweeting‚ commenting on or sharing defamatory statements against Wierzycka until the case had been heard by the Equality Court, says a TimesLIVE report. Wierzycka‚ chief executive of Sygnia Asset Management‚ sought an order to declare statements Manyi made against her between 1 and 5 August this year on Facebook and Twitter as defamatory. Manyi said in one of his statements that Wierzycka was guilty of economic ‘terrorism’ and was a racist. Manyi tweeted last night that he is still studying the judgment ‘which has still NOT pronounced on the issue’. ‘I can’t even find the tweets referred to‚ nor do I know which ones are offensive to Magda. My phone can’t go back to August.’ Advocate Vuyani Ngalwana SC‚ representing Manyi‚ argued that Manyi’s remarks were made in a ‘robust’ political debate and were his right to freedom of expression. Manyi in one of his posts questioned whether Wierzycka was related to Janusz Waluś who murdered SA Communist Party leader Chris Hani‚ due to their common Polish ancestry. Advocate Lwandile Sisilana‚ representing Wierzycka‚ argued that associating Wierzycka with Waluś was inviting the public to view her as someone associated with murderers.

Wierzycka filed her urgent application in early September. Manyi's Twitter rant followed an interview that Wierzycka did on CNBC Africa in early April, in which, among other matters, she said she would offer President Zuma as ‘much money as he wishes to have’ to step down to boost investor confidence. Manyi, on social media, then claimed that Wierzycka wanted to ‘buy off’ the President, tweeting that she ‘objectifies black people as things that can be bought’, notes a Fin24 report. He also referred to her as a ‘super rich White Monopoly Capitalist’. In her judgment Dippenaar said Manyi defended himself, in part, on the basis of freedom of expression. ‘He contends that the applicants are attempting to suppress fair comment on socio-economic issues which do not accord with the first applicant’s (Wierzycka) own views’. Lawyers for Wierzycka, meanwhile, said as part of their broader arguments that, as a public figure with many social media followers, Manyi had a special responsibility to ensure his public statements are ‘well-considered’ and do not cause harm or incite violence. In her 34-page judgment, Dippenaar noted that the case concerned a ‘delicate balancing exercise’ between the right to freedom of expression on the one hand and the right to dignity and equality on the other. Dippenaar also said that it was clear that ‘this court does not have the necessary jurisdiction to determine the application as a whole or consider the granting of any final relief’. She therefore referred the matter to the Equality Court.