The DA has been hauled, on an urgent basis, to the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, over its controversial advertisement depicting the burning of the national flag, which has got the country talking.
The DA in its campaign ahead of the May 29 elections commissioned an advert depicting the country’s national flag engulfed in flames.
Human rights lawyer Zuko Madikane is seeking for the court to declare the DA to be in gross violation of sections 10(1) and 7 of the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act 4 of 2000.
Speaking to The Star on Monday, Madikane said he believed that the conduct of the DA in its advert sent a message that was unconstitutional.
“It should be declared invalid. The DA in its message seeks to propagate violence and incite harm to society … it’s actually telling South Africans to pre-empt the outcomes of the elections … That is not allowed.
“I’m taking the DA to court because we are, by law, prevented from propagating hate speech in terms of section 10 of the Equality Act, which states that no one may propagate or incite violence through hate speech on the basis of race, gender or belonging to a certain group.
“If you see the advert, you will see that they are completely propagating a wrong message,” he said.
Madikane said he was instituting this action “in my own capacity as a South African citizen”.
“The DA has been ignorant. Instead of dealing with the case at hand, they have been trying to discredit me … I want the Constitution to propagate that no one should incite violence,” he said.
He said the advert disseminates hate speech and unfairly discriminates against the ANC, the EFF and black people, particularly those who associate their votes with such political parties mentioned in the advert.
Madikane said the advert should be banned from all public media platforms, including television, radio, social media platform X and other related means of communication from the date of the grant of the court order, unless amended.
According to The Star’s sister newspaper, The Sunday Independent, the DA’s deputy national campaign manager Ashor Sarupen, said Madikane was not a recognised lawyer and was declared bogus.
Despite his assertions, the DA filed their answering affidavit on Monday with the two parties to face off in court on Wednesday.
In the court papers seen by The Star, the DA’s marketing director, Aimee Franklin-D’Aguiar, argues that Madikane’s application is not urgent.
She wrote in part: “His complaint, at its essence, is that the political advert is racist. Even if that is so, which I deny in the strongest terms, Mr Madikane can obtain relief in the ordinary course … Any effect that the advert may have on voters ahead of the elections has already occurred.
“Any agency is entirely self-created and the timelines of this application are unreasonable. Mr Madikane first saw the advert on 5 May 2024. He delayed for nine days to ‘educate’ himself about the 30-second advert and to see whether the advert caused a public outcry. He then launched his application, giving the DA night to file an answering affidavit and setting it down for a week later.”
The commercial caused an uproar on social media, with prominent people voicing their dissatisfaction with the burning of the flag.
While President Cyril Ramaphosa called the advert treasonous, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister Zizi Kodwa criticised the controversial advert, saying it would cause hysteria and division in the country.
Former public protector advocate Thuli Madonsela wrote on social media that the burning of the South African flag was ill-advised.
“This seems to show disrespect and disloyalty to the flag, which to many of us is more than a flag but a symbol of triumph against apartheid. In some countries, it’s even a crime to burn the flag,” she wrote.
Former president Nelson Mandela’s great grandson, Mayibuye Melisizwe Mandela said the DA was bordering on declaring war.
The Star