PE lawyer up for hate speech

PORT Elizabeth attorney Maureen Jansen has been taken to the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) for posting hate speech against Jews on her Facebook account.

Yesterday, the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) announced in a statement they had lodged a complaint of hate speech with the SAHRC against Jansen.

On December 8, Jansen posted a comment where she said Jews should be exterminated, and referred to Jews as “monsters”.

She wrote: “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.”

She later wrote: “I have a new hobby – Zio (Zionists) hunting…”

SAJBD national chairman Jeff Katz said: “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.”

On Facebook, two groups have been formed both for and against Jansen.

The one against her is called Closed Group Boycott Maureen Jansen attorneyy (sic), and in their page information they have stated: “Maureen Jansen, a lawyer based in Port Elizabeth, recently spewed the following vitriol on her Facebook page.

“How can you help – phone her workplace, inform the community of PE, organise protests outside her offices.”

The closed group has 54 members while the other group, Support Maureen Jansen, has 863 members.

Katz also referred to hateful comments made by Penny Sparrow, Velaphi Khumalo and Nicole de Klerk in the last few weeks and condemned them.