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Cape Town – The provincial EFF has called for the immediate arrest of agricultural MEC Ivan Meyer and the organizers of the rally for the murder of farmers after protesters raised the apartheid flag.
On Sunday, hundreds of farmers and farm workers marched towards Parliament demanding government action to stop the escalation of farm attacks and killings with one protester wearing a hat displaying the old flag while another hoisted the old Boer Republic flag.
The EFF said this was an attempt to undermine the law and the court’s judgment and said that Meyer should be arrested for “using state resources to participate in a political event in which an illegal symbol was used without any conviction on his side. as a representative of the government. that it must defend the rule of law ”.
EFF Provincial President Melikhaya Xego said his failure to condemn this “criminality” had suggested his support for both the reason it was used and the context in which it was used.
“The EFF understands that the march was intended to raise awareness of murders on farms and not the murders committed by racist white farmers who continue to kill black people on farms and undermine their dignity. The raising of a symbol of oppression and mass murder of black people in the form of the old apartheid flag is a clear perpetuation of this racial hatred against black people, which the DA supports, ”he said.
However, Meyer said that at no point during his presence at the protest did he personally see an old South African flag being displayed, or the man with the cap, until he saw the images from which the Red Berets had obtained his information.
“The district attorney does not approve of the use of the old South African flag. We agree with the Constitutional Court ruling last year that a free display of the old South African flag now constitutes hate speech.
“The fact is that while delivering my speech, I was proud to be in front of our national flag,” the MEC said.
Meyer added that the farm attacks and farm killings were not a racial issue and reiterated that he was in the protest “for the love of agriculture.”
“I was there for the love of our farmers, I was there in solidarity with our farmers and farm workers, black and white,” he said.
Black Monday South Africa national coordinator Valerie Byliefeld declined to comment.
Cape Argus
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