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15 November 2023 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo SUPPLIED
Dr Georgia du Plessis
Dr Georgia du Plessis started working on topics related to freedom of expression when in academia, and continued to do so at ADF International, her current employer.

It is on this day that the National Council of Provinces will consider the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill during its plenary session. If the bill is passed, it will become law in South Africa, introducing a very broadly defined crime of hate speech that applies to all South African citizens. 

Dr Georgia du Plessis, Legal Officer at ADF International, Brussels, and Research Fellow at the University of the Free State (UFS) and the University of Antwerp, Belgium, points out that, according to the South African government, one of the objectives of the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill is to fulfil South Africa’s responsibilities as outlined in the Constitution and international human rights instruments.

“Here reference is made to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (to which South Africa is a signatory). However, this convention only refers to issues confined to discrimination based on race, colour, national or ethnic origin and not the extensive list of grounds found in Clause 1 of the bill. Furthermore, the international bill of rights (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) places no obligation on member states to implement hate speech laws,” she states.

She strongly believes that “the so-called international obligations requiring such overbroad hate speech laws are not specified and an incorrect understanding of the actual obligations placed upon South Africa by these international instruments”. 

Solving inequalities

Given the deep-rooted inequalities in the country, it is easy to conclude that certain forms of speech contribute to maintaining these historical inequalities, making a case for their regulation and prohibition.

Dr Du Plessis, however, is of the opinion that the current inequalities found in South African society are due to a variety of historical and current factors such as corruption, perpetuated historical inequalities, low employment and education rates, etc., that will not be solved or even alleviated by limiting freedom of expression. “Quite the contrary,” she states. 

She believes there are already measures in place to limit speech that threatens to discriminate and violate the rights of others. Here, for instance, she refers to Section 36 of the Constitution and laws such as the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination (Equality) Act 4 of 2000. “Here Section 10 already prohibits ‘hate speech’ even more broadly than the South African Constitution (Section 16),” she says. 

“The Equality Act is already an overly broad restriction of freedom of speech found in the Constitution,” states Dr Du Plessis. 

According to her, freedom of expression was one of the few tools that can and remains to be used by the vulnerable, oppressed, and poor. “There is no evidence that suggests that such ‘hate speech laws’ will protect the most vulnerable in society and reduce racism. Instead, it gives the government a tool to take away hard-won rights and freedoms that can be used against those very same groups in society that need the most protection. Limiting speech will not reduce inequalities and discrimination. On the contrary, it will disempower those who need it the most,” she says. 

The definition

Dr Du Plessis says, “The current Hate Speech Bill contains a circular definition of ‘hate speech’ which boils down to ‘hate speech’ being defined as ‘hate’.” 

“This lack of narrowly defined concepts, which is necessary for legal certainty in criminal law, can easily be used to the ‘advantage of a government’ and enlist the general public as ‘agents of the control process’,” she states. 

Dr Du Plessis uses blasphemy laws in Nigeria as an example – a country where “blasphemy laws are used as an excuse to act in a discriminatory manner and in violence towards others when the person feels that his or her religion or religious figure has been offended. Deborah Emmanuel Yakubu was stoned and burned to death for posting messages on WhatsApp allegedly insulting and blaspheming against the Prophet Muhammad”.

She suggests that although the Hate Speech Bill may seem different – that it will not allow for such instances within the young democracy – the wording of the current version of the bill is open to being interpreted as putting someone in jail for eight years for causing emotional ‘harm’ (whatever that may mean). “This is not very different from how blasphemy laws operate, which is premised on the emotional subjective experience of the person towards whom the speech is made”.

“In essence,” she says, “Clause 4(1) of the bill states that any person who acts in a manner that can be seen as a clear intention to incite harm and propagate hatred is guilty of hate speech.”

As stated by her, ‘hate’ is not defined further, and ‘harm’ is very broadly defined as any ‘substantial emotional, psychological, physical, social or economic detriment that objectively and severely undermines the human dignity of the targeted individual or group’. Thus, aspects such as ‘offence’ can easily be included under the definition of ‘harm’, even if international law clearly states that speech causing offence cannot necessarily limit the right to freedom of expression as such.

She also points out that there is no universally accepted definition of ‘hate speech.’ “Speech that is defined by an emotion, such as hate, is conducive to the subjective emotional meaning attached to it by the one who utters such speech and the person against whom it is uttered,” she says.

  • Dr Du Plessis lectured public law subjects at the UFS, which included international law, administrative law, statutory interpretation, and human rights law in general. She later received a scholarship to complete her PhD in Law in Belgium on the right to freedom of religion or belief. At KU Leuven in Belgium, she lectured and published on related topics and thereafter started working at ADF International in Brussels. Her work at ADF International involves legal advocacy and research on freedom of religion or belief, freedom of expression, and parental rights – mainly related to the European Union, but also internationally (for example, related matters in South Africa).

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News Archive

During 2011: Appointments
2011-12-01

Dr Lis Lange: Senior Director: DIRAP

Description: 2011 Appointments_Lis Lange Tags: 2011 Appointments_Lis Lange

Dr Lis Lange, an Argentinean by birth, immigrated to South Africa twenty years ago – a few weeks after Nelson Mandela had walked through the gates of Victor Verster. For the past ten years, she has been involved in quality assurance for higher education institutions at the Council on Higher Education at national level.

She is assisting our university in the areas of quality assurance and academic planning, contributing to the development of deep intellectual debate and multi-disciplinary research.


Prof. Charles Dumas, Department of Drama and Theatre Arts

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Prof. Charles Dumas, Extraordinary Professor in our Department of Drama and Theatre Arts, will be spending three months per year for the next three years at our university to help develop filmmaking, specifically focusing on the development of the Video Unit Planned for the Department.

Prof. Dumas started the year off with the production, Our Father’s Daughters, which was produced during the Mini-festival as well as at the Reitz Four reconciliation meeting. The production was also turned into a short film. Prof. Dumas gave film-acting classes to the third-year drama students. He directed multiple productions, such as the third-year module production Ipi Zombi, the Grahamstown Festival production, Seven Guitars and the Dance/drama production, Race, Reconciliation and the Reitz Four.


Prof. Daniel Plaatjies, UFS Business School

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Prof. Daniel Plaatjies is the former Director and Head of the Graduate School of Public and Development Management at the University of the Witwatersrand. He was mainly responsible for the leading, directing and managing of strategic academic programmes, teaching, research, governance, service management and monitoring. Prof. Plaatjies, who was appointed as Visiting Professor at our Business School this year, will as part of his new duties at our Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, be lecturing part-time and supervise our PhD students.


Prof. Johann Neethling, Department of Private Law

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Prof. Johann Neethling’s career is now completing its full circle with his appointment as Senior Professor in our Department of Private Law. In 1965 he was a first-year at this university. With his nine law text books and nearly 200 articles, together with 40 years’ experience in academic training he is of inestimable value to this Department. His publications contribute to the establishment of our university as a research institute.


Prof. Hussein Solomon, Department of Political Science

 Description: 2011 Appointments_Hussein Solomon Tags: 2011 Appointments_Hussein Solomon

Prof. Hussein Solomon joined our university this year as Senior Professor in the Department of Political Science. Formerly he worked in peace NGOs, advised diplomats and acts as a serving officer in the South African Air Force.

His area of research expertise includes conflict and conflict resolution in Africa; South African Foreign Policy; international relations theory; religious fundamentalism and population movements within the developing world. He is also the author of a number of books, including one on global jihad and one on India's secret relationship with apartheid South Africa.

He is also member of the internationally renowned Our Humanity in the Balance (OHIB) organisation, where his role is to bring these disparate communities together and to focus energies on a common project.


Prof. André Keet, International Institute for Studies in Race, Reconciliation and Social Justice

Description: 2011 Appointments_Andre Keet Tags: 2011 Appointments_Andre Keet

Prof. André Keet, our Director of the International Institute for Studies in Race, Reconciliation and Social Justice, joined the University of Pretoria on a part-time basis in 2008, whilst being a Commissioner on the Commission for Gender Equality. Later he left the Commission and joined the University of Fort Hare. “I was happy to join academia and now also serve on the Stellenbosch University Council; therefore I am very aware of the challenges facing higher education,” he said.

His vision for the Institute is to support higher-education transformation, promote non-discrimination, reconciliation and human rights, build national, regional and international networks, and developing ‘new’ languages, knowledge and discourses for reconciliation and social justice, all to the benefit of our university and South Africa.”


Prof. Helene Strauss, Department of English

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Prof. Helene Strauss completed her PhD at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, where she taught courses on Film Studies, Children’s Literature and South African Literature and Culture. “I was subsequently appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.” She joined our Department of English this year.

Prof. Strauss has an on-going preoccupation with questions concerning social justice, race, gender and ethical interpersonal interaction in South Africa and beyond.


Prof. EC Ejiogu, Centre for Africa Studies

Description: 2011 Appointments_EC Ejiogu Tags: 2011 Appointments_EC Ejiogu

After 22 years in the United States of America, Prof. EC Ejiogu decided to return to Africa – to his roots – to join our university’s Centre for Africa Studies at the beginning of 2011.

Before joining the Centre, he was Assistant Research Professor in the Centre for Innovation at the University of Maryland, College Park. As Senior Researcher at the Centre, he has already helped with the streamlining of the academic programme, restructuring it to enable students to gain skills necessary to deliver a research proposal towards a dissertation after their three years of study. He has also taken up PhD and Master’s supervision.

His latest publications include a book published in March 2011 with the title, Roots of Political Instability in Nigeria, and a book co-edited with Prof. Kwandiwe Kondlo, Director of the Centre for Africa Studies, Africa in focus: Governance in the 21st century, published in April 2011.


Pura Mgolombane, Vice-Dean: Student Affairs

Description: 2011 Appointments_Pura Tags: 2011 Appointments_Pura

Bringing with him a decade of experience in Student Affairs our new Assistant-Dean for Student Life and Leadership, Pura Mgolombane, has big plans for student development. He says his office wants to help Kovsies increase its throughput rate and produce socially well-adjusted and employable graduates in South Africa, the continent and anywhere in the world.

Before joining Kovsies, he was employed as Director: Student Life, Governance and Culture at Walter Sisulu University. Pura, who has a background in Human Resources, Business Management and Corporate Law, says his academic training has empowered him with skills to ensure that the Student Life and Leadership is properly led, governed and managed.


Prof. Hasina Ebrahim, School for Social Sciences and Language Education

Description: 2011 Appointments_Hasina Ebrahim Tags: 2011 Appointments_Hasina Ebrahim

This former academic from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal was appointed as Associate Professor at our School for Social Sciences and Language Education in the Faculty of Education. Amongst others, she is the project coordinator for the Faculty’s Early Childhood and Foundation Phase Teacher Education Programme and the MEd and PhD supervisor in the programme.

Prof. Ebrahim is also the Deputy-President of the first South African Research Association for Early Childhood Education (birth to nine). “This is certainly a milestone to profile the university in terms of its thrust towards excellence in research,” she says. One of the main aims of the association is to shape the research agenda for a marginalised field in South Africa. 


Prof. Corli Witthuhn, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences

 Description: 2011 Appointments_Corli Witthuhn Tags: 2011 Appointments_Corli Witthuhn

Prof. Corli Witthuhn, a former Bloemfonteiner, attained her PhD in Microbiology at our university. Therafter, in 1999, she was appointed as a lecturer at Stellenbosch University and later as Vice-Dean.

Currently she is our Vice-Dean in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences. She hopes to sustain her research here at our University.

Her life motto? “Opportunities are presented in the form of obstacles,” she says.
 


Prof. Melanie Walker

Description: 2011 Appointments_Melanie Walker Tags: 2011 Appointments_Melanie Walker

Prof. Melanie Walker is a prominent South African scholar who has been working as Professor of Higher Education Studies at the world-leading University of Nottingham in the UK, where she been Director of Postgraduate Students and a Director of Research in the Faculty of Social Sciences. She will join the University of the Free State in February 2012 as Senior University Professor in the Postgraduate School.

She is a graduate of the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the University of Cape Town, where she completed her PhD, after teaching in disadvantaged secondary schools for a number of years. Prior to working at Nottingham she worked at the Universities of Sheffield, West of England and Glasgow, as well as the Universities of Cape Town and the Western Cape. She is also a Fellow of the Human Development and Capability Association. She is currently Director of Research Training and a senior researcher in the EU-funded Marie Curie EDUWEL project, which includes senior researchers from eight European countries and 15 early-stage researchers.

With a long-standing commitment to social-justice research and equality practices, she is currently widely recognised internationally as leading in the application of the capability approach and human development to higher education policy and practice. Among others, she has led or participated in research projects funded by the NRF (South Africa), the Higher Education Academy (UK), HEFCE (UK), EU, and ESRC/DfID, which funded the Public-Good Professionals’ Capability Index research project. 
 

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