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Moses Mogali, a founding member of the AFC, said Gwala was waiting to be reported and was in hiding because his face had been published.
He said that although he wouldn’t call Gwala a friend, they were “fighting the same fight.”
“Gwala also participated in the march on the Nigerian embassy.”
Jean le Roux, a forensic investigator and associate investigator for the DFRLab, took more than two months to unmask Gwala.
Using open source online systems and corroborating evidence with court documents filed by SANDF in the court case of firing the 34 soldiers, he discovered that Gwala was allegedly behind @uLerato_pillay.
Before Gwala assumed the persona of Lerato Pillay, his tweets were not xenophobic. She posted abrasive responses to celebrities on Twitter to attract followers.
“His tweets became more xenophobic in February of this year as more and more people followed the account.”
Through online systems, DFRLab researchers found deleted tweets, evidence of the renaming of social media accounts, and mapped interactions between the @uLerato_pillay account and Gwala’s social media accounts.
“What stood out from the mapping was his intimate knowledge of the SANDF, the foreign army deployments, especially in the Democratic Republic of the Congo … in particular, he knew a lot about the court case involving these soldiers.
“There were also a lot of tweets about 121 SA Infantry Battalion, which is Gwala’s old unit.”
He said court documents, which contained Gwala’s name, corroborated the digital evidence they found, including Gwala’s phone numbers and details of the deployment.
Le Roux said Gwala was very careful about the way he tweeted and did not specifically ask for foreigners to be targeted.
Instead, this has been a gradual, months-long process of smearing foreigners and stoking anti-foreign sentiments.
“We found out how he manipulates crime news reports, when there is absolutely no evidence that the suspect is a foreigner.
“Reviews of tweet responses showed hundreds of responses suggesting fatal actions to be taken against foreigners.”
Abigail Dawson, a spokeswoman for the Consortium for Migrants and Refugees SA, said online xenophobia was prominent on Twitter, with tweets and hashtags, inciting violence, being regular trends.
“That [social media] it provides a platform for people to share complaints and collectively shift blame to one nationality and leverage the support of other users online. “
He said it was necessary to implement the government’s national action plan to combat racism, discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerances.
“Perpetrators of xenophobia must be held accountable.”
Nigerian Union SA president Adetola Olubajo said she was happy that the person behind @uLerato_pillay had been revealed.
“He has done a lot of damage by spreading hatred. Hate fuels anger in the minds of gullible people. Its effect goes beyond social networks.
“People see these things and believe what they have read. They don’t realize that the account may be fake. Many foreigners and Nigerians in particular have been victims of anger and hatred. There are many accounts like this that are used to spread hate. “
Pakistan SA Association President Mian Naseer Ahmed said they are concerned that last year’s violence will be repeated.
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