HRC Complaint Lodged Against Maureen Jansen

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) has lodged a complaint of hate speech with the SA Human Rights Commission against Port Elizabeth attorney Maureen Jansen. This is in response to a comment posted by Jansen on her Facebook in which, amongst other things, she referred to Jews as ‘monsters’ who should be ‘exterminated’ for their support – whether active or passive – of Israel.

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) has lodged a complaint of hate speech with the SA Human Rights Commission against Port Elizabeth attorney Maureen Jansen. This is in response to a comment posted by Jansen on her Facebook in which, amongst other things, she referred to Jews as ‘monsters’ who should be ‘exterminated’ for their support – whether active or passive – of Israel. The comment, posted on 8 December 2015, reads: “Bloody Israelis should be exterminated along with all the ‘Jews’ everywhere who support Israel by action or silence. The Semites of the Torah are long gone. These monsters are Jewish converts, not Semites”.

SAJBD National Chairman Jeff Katz said that although preceding the current slew of racist remarks on social media, Jansen’s comments were just one more instance of how certain hate-filled individuals confidently propagated virulent racism against their fellow citizens.

“Such hate-mongering goes beyond defaming and threatening any particular group of people; they go against the culture of non-racialism on which our democracy is founded, and as such are an attack on all South Africans” he said.

The SAJBD strongly condemns Jansen’s racist comments, as well as those by Penny Sparrow, Velaphi Khumalo and Nicole de Klerk in recent days. No cause, whether political or otherwise, can ever justify incitement to violence, particularly when based on race, religion, ethnicity or other such grounds.