Tribunal hears radio hate speech case
2012-12-11 17:40
Cape Town - An interview broadcast on a Muslim community
radio station in 1998 incited a hatred of all Jews, the Broadcasting Complaints
Commission of SA heard on Tuesday.
"This broadcast was aimed at and inspired the hatred
of Jews, serving forth anti-Semitic claims and stereotypes," advocate
Peter Hodes told the complaints and compliance committee.
"I want to emphasise to you that anti-Semitism has
caused great harm to Jews in the past and has the potential to do so wherever
it appears."
He said the interview evoked a sense of marginalism,
creating the perception that Jews could not be trusted, were the root of all
evil and should be eradicated.
Hodes was speaking on behalf of the SA Jewish Board of
Deputies (SAJBD), who lodged a hate-speech complaint against Radio 786, over a
broadcast on 8 May 1998.
The radio station broadcast a programme entitled "Zionism
and the state of Israel - an in-depth analysis", featuring an interview
with United Kingdom academic Yakub Zaki.
According to the SAJBD, the academic claimed, amongst
other things, that Jews had brought about the Anglo-Boer war, conspired to
steal South Africa's natural resources, controlled the banks of the world and
invented the Holocaust.
Hodes argued that in broadcasting the programme, Radio
786 was guilty of contravening the Broadcasting Code of Conduct, which
prohibited the advocacy of hatred based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion,
and that constituted incitement to cause harm.
The committee, headed by Wandile Tutani, had been tasked
with hearing the merits of both the SAJBD and the Islamic Unity Convention,
which holds the station's licence.
The hearing in Cape Town was the culmination of 14 years
of court action and public hearings, with the matter twice reaching the
Constitutional Court.
It would continue until Friday.
- SAPA
