CRL Commission chair opens case against Forsa leader for 'repeated insults'
The chair of the CRL Commission wants the courts to decide the fate of Michael Swain, leader of Freedom of Religion South Africa (Forsa), who she believes is repeatedly insulting her and the commission for its stance on the monitoring of churches.
Thoko Mkhwanazi-Xaluva addressed a media briefing on Thursday with Cheryl Zondi, a witness in the Nigerian televangelist Timothy Omotoso rape case, before she proceeded to Hillbrow police station to open a case of crimen injuria.
Mkhwanazi-Xaluva alleged that NGO Forsa had been persistently using various social media platforms to spread misinformation about the work of the commission.
'This misinformation has been sustained despite us having met them to provide clarity on why the commission has resolved to undertake particular projects or programmes.
'However, the most crucial issue that necessitated this briefing today is the malicious lies that they have been spreading about me as the chair of the commission, as well as Cheryl Zondi,' she said.
In April this year, the Commission for the Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL Rights Commission) raised concerns about the absence of effective oversight mechanisms for religious leaders in churches
Mkhwanazi-Xaluva at the time questioned who was responsible for monitoring and preventing inappropriate behaviour in churches.
'There are behaviours that are unbecoming, inappropriate, unsuitable, sometimes even indecent, in churches,' she said in April. 'Who is monitoring that? Who is making sure that those things don't happen?'
On Thursday, she said Forsa, an organisation of religious leaders representing more than 12-million people, had appealed to the president not to reappoint her in 2019. She said they claimed to have highlighted irregularities and bias of the CRL's investigation and the conflict and division this had created among the faith communities, which CRL had a statutory and constitutional duty to protect and defend.
'While Forsa raises a bias on the part of the commission, they go ahead to single me out. The investigation into abuses taking place in the religious sector and in different religious communities was launched by the members of the commission, not by myself as an individual,' she said.
She said the commission seemed to have started a war with some of the religious leaders when they spoke about monitoring.
'We seem to have started a war with that because people don't want to be held accountable. People who say they're fighting for freedom of religion have literally declared a war on the commission, but specifically on me and then dragged in Cheryl, because they think this is easy to do. You can't just insult people in whatever way you like,' she said.
She added that the commission needed to send a strong message to all the people who were trying to run away from being held accountable as religious leaders.
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