‘Like a dagger in our backs’: racism no longer just black and white as South Africa’s Chinese fight hate speech
- The Chinese Association and 40 other organisations seek severe penalties and unconditional apology from 12 individuals
- Long-awaited court action follows racist and hateful statements made on social media after TV news show about Chinese demand for donkey skins
A courtroom showdown over “genocidal hate speech”, labelling Chinese people living in South Africa as the “scum of the Earth”, is underway in Johannesburg.
The anti-Chinese hate speech case began last month in the South Gauteng High Court’s equality court.
Twelve respondents, alleged to have posted “humiliating and intimidating” comments online, according to The Chinese Association (TCA), are answering for their views.
The association’s supporters flooded the public gallery of the court at the opening of the case which follows a January 2017 report by local investigative journalism television show Carte Blanche exposing the slaughter of scores of donkeys for their skins to be illegally exported for the Chinese medicinal market.
The episode elicited abusive attacks, mainly on social media, against people of Chinese descent in South Africa.
Some of the comments included: “I think we should start killing their (Chinese) children for a [hangover cure]”, Chinese people are “vile, barbaric people”, and “Chinese are the rot of the Earth”, among others.
The attacks on people of Chinese descent are part a wider problem in South Africa whereby foreigners are routinely accused by locals of “stealing jobs” or as the source of crime, with overt violence and attacks usually occurring in the most impoverished communities.