ACDP Speaks out against hate speech

MEDIA RELEASE

20 March 2013

ACDP SPEAKS OUT AGAINST HATE SPEECH

• strongly condemns anti-semitic nature of Israeli Apartheid Week

• horror of what happened to Matabele people in Zimbabwe - yet to be acknowledged

ACDP MP Cheryllyn Dudley said today:

“The ACDP notes that the week from 21 to 27 March, has been set aside to show solidarity with people struggling racism & racial discrimination and coincides with Human Rights Day.

Coming so close on the heels of the Israeli Apartheid Week organised at universities throughout the world the irony is not lost! Under the guise of solidarity with the people of Gaza, hate speech was condoned and applauded and anti-semitism was rife. 

The ACDP strongly condemns the anti-semitic nature of events that took place during this week at universities and other places as part of the inaccurately named Israeli Apartheid Week. We also find remarks by the Deputy Minister of International Relations and Co-operation, Marius Fransman, about Jewish businessmen in Cape Town to be divisive and inflammatory and extremely inappropriate for a person in his position.

The interests of all parties to any religious or national conflict are best served by a process of dialogue aimed at resolving differences and not a process that takes sides and drives parties further apart.”

It is over 60 years since the entire world stood up and said "Never Again"; never again to the genocide that saw millions of people – mainly Jewish people - killed because the Nazi regime found them racially or physically unacceptable, or just disagreed with their views. 

Since that Holocaust ended in 1945, there has been 46 genocides. 46 instances where masses of people have been exterminated! Close to home the horror of what happened to the Matabele people in Zimbabwe is yet to be even acknowledged – one genocide that the world has allowed to be ‘swept under the carpet’.

Racism & racial discrimination in all its forms are unacceptable and the ACDP welcomes Human Rights Day and the week to show solidarity with people struggling racism & racial discrimination as an opportunity to speak out against it."