AfriForum introduced a complaint to the United Nations (UN) against the South African government during a live announcement today. The complaint pertains to the government’s use of lockdown regulations during the COVID-19 pandemic to promote the ANC’s racial agenda. AfriForum will submit the complaint to Dr Fernand de Varennes, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on minority issues, requesting him to investigate the manner in which the South African government misuses the COVID-19 pandemic to enforce a racial ideology on society.

The complaint follows the South African government taking various steps to execute its reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic in a manner that discriminate against minorities based on race. The complaint points to various statements made in this regard by the South African government, the ruling party and the ruling party’s alliance partners, as well as the fact that the South African government uses race as criterion for providing relief to small and medium-sized businesses that suffer as a result of the lockdown.

President Cyril Ramaphosa said inter alia that government’s reaction to the pandemic should mainly promote the interests of black people, that white people’s “sense of entitlement” should be blamed for the inequalities in South Africa and that a “fundamentally different society” should be built in South Africa. To make this happen, Ramaphosa said, existing institutions should first be destroyed.

Ernst Roets, Head of Policy and Action at AfriForum, called on the international opinion formers to speak out against this practice.

“The fact that a government uses an international pandemic as smokescreen to promote an ideology of racism and an agenda of racial discrimination is simply immoral and cannot be justified in any way whatsoever.”

AfriForum also called on people abroad  to support the organisation’s campaign against racism by visiting the website www.friendsofafriforum.com.

Read the report here.