South Africans fail to heed social media warnings

Despite numerous high-profile cases, South Africans are still being snared by their own social media platforms. Legalbrief reports that the latest case involves two Department of Justice employees who have been suspended after they used racial slurs to describe a colleague in Facebook exchanges. As evidenced in last week’s sentencing of Vicki Momberg, the courts are being increasingly intolerant of racial outbursts. Ironically, leaked audio recording released of Momberg’s call to 10111 operators helped seal her fate. As previously reported in Legalbrief Today, she was sentenced in the Randburg Magistrate's Court to three years' imprisonment, with one year suspended, for her K-word rant at a police constable, David Mkhondo. In the Justice Department matter, accountant Lourens Botes and chief clerk Natascha Steynberg Roos allegedly referred to senior accounting clerk Wisani Mkhari in derogatory terms as they discussed work politics on Facebook. Mkhari (42) was alerted to the posts two weeks ago and laid a complaint. The posts, which the Sunday Times says it has seen, have been deleted. Mkhari said he had been traumatised by the posts. ‘It is the same as calling someone the K-word. The fact that they posted it on Facebook several times means they are used to calling black people all sorts of derogatory names.’ SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) provincial manager Buang Jones said the complaint had been brought to its attention last week and a preliminary assessment determined that there was a prima facie violation of the right to equality and human dignity. ‘The commission will consult with the complainant and thereafter determine whether to institute legal proceedings in the Equality Court or whether the complaint merits a full investigation,’ said Jones.

And a racist rant involving a black man, who called for white people to be subjected to what ‘Hitler did to the Jews’, is to be heard in the Equality Court this month. Judge Roland Surtherland is expected to hear the case against Velaphi Khumalo, according to confirmation the SAHRC had sent to the complainant, Daniel Amos. A report on the News24 site notes that a case of crimen injuria was opened against Khumalo and 19 complaints were lodged at the SAHRC. Khumalo posted the comment on Facebook in January 2016 after former estate agent Penny Sparrow had referred to black people as monkeys. Amos said if Khumalo is convicted, he hoped Khumalo would receive a similar sentence to the one imposed on Momberg.

Meanwhile, Lotus FM presenter Pauline Rosanna Sangham has broken her silence about the wave of criticism over her allegedly Islamophobic comments. The Durban mother told The Post she had to go into hiding last month after people claimed she referred to Islam as ‘a false religion’. ‘I have been framed by people. They maliciously saw a response I made on a public forum (blog) used for healthy debates and took it out of context,’ she said. The SA Muslim Network said it had found more Islamophobic content on Sangham’s social media sites. An item dated 14 May, 2016, posted in the group Answering Islam - Jesus is God, purportedly has her saying: ‘Islam is not strictly speaking a religion. No doubt it has these elements of a relationship with God but its a destructive force of fear...’

A KZN High Court judge has ruled that a woman's rant on Facebook against her former business associate was defamatory, even if it was true and may be interesting to the public, says TimesLIVE. Tasmyn-Jain van Niekerk alleged on Facebook that Ballito-based events organiser Heidi Garbade 'screwed' hundreds of people out of their money. Garbade first secured an interim interdict against Van Niekerk, whom she had employed to assist her with social media during a Christmas Fair in December 2015. When the fair was shut down, apparently when the landlord of the premises locked the door because of non-payment of rent, Van Niekerk spread rumours that Garbade was a thief, a scam and a fraudster. She demanded R3 800 in unpaid commissions from Garbade. Then, in 2016 when Garbade was organising a high-profile polo event, Van Niekerk, in a Facebook post, said Garbade had 'screwed hundreds of people out of thousands of rands'. In response to a lawyer's letter, she refused to take down the post 'until you settle the amounts owed to me and others'. After Garbarde secured an interim order from the court, she removed it. Judge Johan Ploos van Amstel made the order final, saying it was generally accepted that posting of a defamatory matter on social media could constitute publication for the purposes of defamation.