Offensive pictures removed from Magistrates Court
Magistrate Ashin Singh has removed two framed pictures that referred to interpreters as Bantu and native from the magistrates tea room at the Pietermaritzburg courts, according to a report in The Witness.
He said he was tired of seeing the photographs with the offensive captions displayed at the tearoom, which is also used as a meeting room. The group photos are of the court staff, including magistrates, prosecutors and interpreters. Under a photograph from 1961 an interpreter is referred to as a Bantu, while the one from 1951 refers to the interpreter as a native. There is no place for such language to be used in court, said Singh, adding that it gives some people a sense of racial superiority. He added that the captions refer to Indians as such, not in derogatory terms, so why should blacks be referred to in a derogatory manner?. Full report in The Witness