AfriForum lays charges with UN

Lobby group AfriForum has laid charges against the government at the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights over ‘draconic regulations and the brutal enforcement of the lockdown to combat the Covid-19 pandemic’, as well as what it says is a racial agenda promoted with tourism relief funds, according to News24. The organisation said it had requested the High Commissioner to launch an investigation into ‘violation(s) of civil freedoms in SA’. The charge follows a High Court judgment declaring regulations surrounding levels three and four of the lockdown irrational. Previously, the UN Human Rights Office raised concerns over excessive use of force in several countries, including SA. AfriForum said the charge related to law enforcement brutality against citizens while implementing the lockdown, ‘as well as the fact that the government uses the pandemic as an opportunity to promote a particular race ideology’. It also related to regulations surrounding the forced quarantine of Covid-19 patients and tobacco ban, as well as AfriForum's court battle with the Tourism Department and the B-BBEEE criteria applied in the Tourism Relief Fund, which, it said, promoted a ‘racial agenda’.