Latest news with #BillofRights
IOL News
a day ago
- Politics
- IOL News
The case of Afriforum, Ernst Roets and the Trump era
AfriForum framed its global tour as free speech, but its "white genocide" claims led to U.S. threats against South Africa—and deadly consequences in Pretoria, writes Gillian Schutte. Image: IOL AfriForum insists its trans-Atlantic charm offensive was no more than free speech dressed up in diplomatic attire. Ernst Roets toured Washington and Canberra clutching a dossier of farm-murder horror stories, selling the fable of a 'white genocide' and pleading for punitive action against his own country. He left satisfied; the Trump administration promptly threatened South Africa with sanctions, visa bans and the possible suspension of AGOA trade benefits. On Pretoria's streets the price was paid in bodies. Sanctions rarely arrive with a whistle like a bomb, yet their impact is explosive all the same. Treasury bean-counters scramble to plug the resulting hole in revenue; police salaries are delayed; overtime is cancelled. Officers facing shrinking pay-packets are quick to reach for the baton and the live round when township unrest flares. Land-rights activists—already framed by AfriForum's narrative as agents of genocide—become soft targets for 'pre-emptive' repression. A late-night knock, a shot in the dark, no warrant, no body-cam: the tell-tale pattern of extrajudicial killing the Minnesota Protocol warns about and our Constitution expressly forbids. Roets and his backers cannot pretend surprise. The scholarly record is vast and grim. Rhodesia in the 1960s, Iraq in the 1990s, Venezuela after 2017: starve a state of cash and it feeds on its own citizens. AfriForum was repeatedly warned. DIRCO briefings laid out the social cost of trade penalties; labour federations predicted blood on the shop-floor if jobs evaporated. Roets shrugged and pressed on, proclaiming that 'international force is the only option left'. That shrug is not political bluster—it is dolus eventualis, the legal heartbeat of treason. Under South African criminal law, a person acts with dolus eventualis when they foresee a forbidden outcome and embrace it as an acceptable price for their goal. AfriForum foresaw that foreign coercion would cripple the state and ratchet up violence; it welcomed the risk because the bigger the chaos, the stronger the leverage to freeze land reform. Call it by its common-law name: betraying the Republic. The usual riposte is freedom of expression. Yet the Bill of Rights draws a clear line: speech that incites imminent harm enjoys no sanctuary. Crying 'genocide' where none exists is more than hyperbole; it is a dog-whistle to foreign hawks and local vigilantes alike. One need only glance at the surge in armed 'boer protection' patrols after AfriForum's Washington jaunt to see how the narrative hardens triggers into action. There is also the convenient dodge that Washington's decision was sovereign and thus breaks any causal chain. Our courts are not so easily misled. They ask whether the outcome was a reasonable and foreseeable consequence of the accused's conduct. Sanctions in response to a choreographed moral panic? As foreseeable as sunrise. The United States even spelled out its reasoning in press releases echoing AfriForum's briefing notes almost word for word. Influence need not be decisive; it must merely be material—and the paper trail of meetings, podcasts and FARA-registered lobbying contracts more than meets that standard. Some will mutter that treason is an archaic charge, rolled out only for coup plotters in camouflage. Nonsense. Treason protects constitutional sovereignty, not party flags or presidential motorcades. When a well-funded pressure group enlists a foreign power to twist Pretoria's arm, it strikes at the very nerve centre the crime was designed to defend. The High Court confirmed as much in S v Harris (1952), convicting defendants who funnelled intelligence abroad without firing a shot. The principle is unchanged: you may criticise government, but you may not invite outsiders to batter it into submission. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. 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Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Next Stay Close ✕ If the National Prosecuting Authority baulks at the optics of a treason trial, it still faces the ICC Act's uncompromising reach. Aiding or abetting crimes against humanity carries universal jurisdiction, and the Rome Statute treats systematic extrajudicial killings as just that. Evidence that lobbying paved the road to lethal police raids would drag AfriForum into a courtroom whether or not the charge-sheet carries the T-word. Beyond the legal calculus lies a political imperative. South Africa's bargain of 1994 was fragile to begin with; it cannot withstand a precedent that outsources our policy debates to foreign strongmen. If AfriForum walks unscathed, every aggrieved faction will learn the lesson: skip the ballot box, shop your grievance in Washington, wait for the rands to tumble and the rubber bullets to fly. That path leads to a broken republic and a queue of grieving families outside mortuaries. Ernst Roets likes to ask who will protect his community when the state fails. The honest answer is that the state begins to fail when citizens like him decide its laws and institutions are expendable bargaining chips on Capitol Hill. Accepting foreign sanctions at the cost of South African lives is not patriotism; it is collusion. And collusion, when it endangers the very sovereignty that guarantees all our rights, crosses the line into treason. The NDPP should enrol the indictment. If it lacks the nerve, the families of those shot dead in sanctioned austerity's shadow will eventually force the issue—here or in The Hague. That day cannot come soon enough, for in a constitutional democracy the loudest defence of free expression must never drown out the quieter, irrevocable right to life. * Gillian Schutte is a South African writer, filmmaker, and critical-race scholar known for her radical critiques of neoliberalism, whiteness, and donor-driven media. Her work centres African liberation, social justice, and revolutionary thought. ** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Kansans challenge constitutionality of state law nullifying end-of-life choices of pregnant women
Five lawsuit plaintiffs, three women and two physicians from Lawrence, are part of a constitutional challenge of a Kansas law nullifying the end-of-life medical care decisions of pregnant women. The suit was filed Thursday in Douglas County District Court. (Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector) TOPEKA — Two physicians and three women are plaintiffs in a Kansas lawsuit challenging constitutionality of a state law invalidating advance medical directives outlining end-of-life treatment for pregnant patients. The group's lawsuit seeks to prohibit enforcement of a Kansas statute interfering with health care decisions outlined in living wills based exclusively on an individual's pregnancy status. Kansas is among states permitting state interference in advance directives for pregnant patients, regardless of the gestational age of a fetus, when a person was incapacitated or terminally ill. Issues surrounding end-of-life state law recently took on urgency as a brain-dead pregnant Georgia woman was placed on life support in deference to that state's abortion ban. Kansas patient plaintiffs Emma Vernon, Abigail Ottaway and Laura Stratton as well as Kansas physician plaintiffs Michele Bennett and Lynley Holman argued in the Douglas County District Court complaint filed Thursday the Kansas law violated rights of personal autonomy, privacy, equal treatment and freedom of speech under the Kansas Constitution's Bill of Rights by disregarding clearly articulated end-of-life choices of pregnant people. 'Because I'm currently pregnant, I don't get the peace of mind a living will is meant to provide,' said Vernon, a Lawrence resident who is pregnant. 'I shouldn't have to fear that my pregnancy could cost me my dignity and autonomy.' Vernon said she outlined in a living will the medical care she would want if faced with a life-threatening condition, but Kansas' law meant she wouldn't have control over her end-of-life care while pregnant. 'I am no less capable of planning my medical care simply because I am pregnant. I know what is best for me,' she said. Many states established a boundary for medical directives of pregnant individuals no longer capable of participating in end-of-life care in terms of the viability of a fetus. Kansas' statute invalidated decision-making authority of pregnant women regardless of gestational development of a fetus. Holman, a Lawrence physician specializing in obstetrics and gynecology, said responsibilities of health care professionals should be centered on honoring patients' autonomy and privacy. 'When a law compels me to act against my patients' clearly expressed decisions, it not only undermines the trust at the heart of the patient-provider relationship, but also threatens the ethical foundation of medical care,' Holman said. Defendants in the Kansas lawsuit are Kris Kobach, the state attorney general; Richard Bradbury, president of the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts; and Dakota Loomis, district attorney in Douglas County. The lawsuit seeks to prevent Kobach and Bradbury from enforcing state law nullifying directives of pregnant women. The case was filed by attorneys with Compassion & Choices, a Colorado nonprofit working to improve patient autonomy at the end of life; If/When/How, a California reproductive rights legal nonprofit; and the Topeka law firm of Irigonegaray & Revenaugh. Attorney Pedro Irigonegaray said Kansans valued individual rights and personal freedoms, but the state's pregnancy exclusion 'betrays those values by denying pregnant people the right to control their own medical decisions.' 'Our plaintiffs are simply asking for the same fundamental rights the Kansas Constitution guarantees to all Kansans,' said Jess Pezley, senior staff attorney at Compassion & Choices. 'Categorically stripping individuals of their right to make deeply personal end-of-life decisions because they are pregnant is not only offensive, it's fundamentally at odds with the values enshrined in the Kansas Constitution.' The lawsuit says Kansas law 'unjustly, discriminatorily and categorically disregards' the clearly expressed end-of-life decisions of pregnant women. The women plaintiffs asked the district court to 'affirm that the protections guaranteed by the Kansas Constitution apply equally to them and ensure that their most personal end-of-life decisions will be respected regardless of their pregnancy status.' In addition, the petition says the physician plaintiffs were 'deeply committed to the foundational medical principle that patients have a fundamental right to determine what treatment they receive, and that providing treatment without a patient's informed consent violates both medical ethics and the law.' 'Yet, Kansas law compels them to disregard their patients' clearly expressed end-of-life decisions, forcing them to provide their pregnant patients with a lower standard of care than any of their other patients receive,' the petition said. 'It demands this diminished care without offering any clarity on what end-of-life treatment they are required to provide — leaving them to guess at what the law expects while exposing them to civil, criminal and professional consequences for getting it wrong.'
Otago Daily Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
Night in custody result of an error
An unfortunate typo left a Dunedin protester in a police cell for the night before he was cleared of wrongdoing by a judge. Adam Currie, of climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa, was held in custody overnight following his arrest for apparently breaching bail at a peaceful protest in central Dunedin, on Wednesday. In April, Mr Currie and 10 others were charged with wilful trespass after about 70 protesters camped on the West Coast's Denniston Plateau for five days in opposition to mining company Bathurst Resources seeking fast-track approval to expand its operation. He and five other protesters climbed into cable cars used to transport coal at Stockton Mine. Mr Currie said it had been a "real shock" to be arrested on Wednesday and it was the first time he had been held by police overnight. Climate activist Adam Currie (centre left) leaves the Dunedin District Court with supporters yesterday. Photo: Gerard O'Brien He said when he appeared in Dunedin District Court on Thursday morning, a clerk confirmed there had been a typo when his bail conditions were set in April. "It was meant to say 'you will not engage in unlawful protest', but then there was a typo by the registrar, and so it said 'you will not engage in lawful protest'." The judge found "clearly that bail condition was unlawful", Mr Currie said. "The Dunedin District Court judge confirmed that banning me from lawful protest was inconsistent with the Bill of Rights. "But the judge said he would not take further action against the registrar who set this condition due to judicial immunity." Mr Currie said he would much rather be talking about Bathurst Resources' fast-track application and the damage it posed to the climate, nature and human health than his arrest. Mr Currie (far left) during Wednesday's protest outside ANZ's Dunedin central branch. Photo: Peter McIntosh "It's about people versus Bathurst, not about us and the police." "But, yes, absolutely, the police should not be arresting me for lawful protest, and absolutely, I do not enjoy being in a jail overnight." Mr Currie said climate activists had been protesting for years and noticed an "increasing crackdown on public protest". He said those arrested in April planned to contest the c charges "due to it being public land". Following the protest on Wednesday, a police spokeswoman said a 25-year-old man was taken into custody for breaching bail and would appear in court on Thursday. There were no other issues at the protest, she said.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
British Attacks on Free Speech Prove the Value of the First Amendment
Political activists occasionally propose a new constitutional convention, which would gather delegates from the states to craft amendments to the nation's founding document. It's a long and convoluted process, but the Constitution itself provides the blueprint. Article V allows such a confab if two-thirds of Congress or two-thirds of the state legislatures call for one. These days, conservatives are the driving force for the idea, as they see it as a means to put further limits on the federal government. Sometimes, progressives propose such a thing. Their goals are to enshrine various social programs and social-justice concepts. Yet anyone who has watched the moronic sausage-making in Congress and state legislatures should be wary of opening Pandora's Box. I'd be happy enough if both political tribes tried to uphold the Constitution as it is currently drafted. It's a brilliant document that limits the power of the government to infringe on our rights. Without the first 10—the Bill of Rights—this would be a markedly different nation. For a sense of where we might be without it, I'd recommend looking at Great Britain and its approach to the speech concepts detailed on our First Amendment. Our nation was spawned from the British, so we share a culture and history. Yet, without a specific constitutional dictate, that nation has taken a disturbing approach that rightly offends American sensibilities. As Tablet magazine reported, "74-year-old Scottish grandmother Rose Docherty was arrested on video by four police officers for silently holding a sign in proximity to a Glasgow abortion clinic reading 'Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want.'" Thousands of Brits are detained, questioned, and prosecuted, it notes, for online posts of the type that wouldn't raise an eyebrow here. The chilling effect is profound. This isn't as awful as what happens in authoritarian countries such as Russia, where the government's critics have a habit of accidentally falling out of windows. But that's thin gruel. Britain and the European Union are supposed to be free countries. Their speech codes are intended to battle disinformation/misinformation, but empowering the government to be the arbiter of such vague concepts only destroys everyone's freedoms. In 1998, Great Britain approved Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It protects a citizen's "right to hold your own opinions and to express them freely without government interference." But it comes with limits and conditions. The authorities may quash such speech to "protect national security, territorial integrity (the borders of the state) or public safety," or "prevent disorder or crime," or "protect health or morals," or "maintain the authority and impartiality of judges." One may not express "views that encourage racial or religious hatred." Those are open-ended terms, which has led to bizarre prosecutions. Our First Amendment includes these words: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble." A constitutional amendment stating "no law" is more protective than a statute with asterisks and exceptions. With the political Left devoted to limiting speech based on its fixations on race and gender and the political Right's willingness to, say, deport students who take verboten positions on the war in Gaza and malign reporters as enemies of the people, I'd hate to see how speech protections would fare in a refashioned constitution. Traditionally, the Left has taken a "living and breathing" approach, insisting its plain words and founders' intent are up for reinterpretation. Sadly, modern conservatives, who previously defended originalism, seem ready to ditch the Constitution when it hinders their policy aims. Just read their dissing of due process—as stated in the 5th and 14th amendments, when it comes to immigration policy. When asked about habeas corpus during a Senate hearing, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said it's "a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country." It's the opposite, as habeas corpus requires the government to explain why it's detaining people—and forbids it from holding them indefinitely. MAGA apparently believes the words of the Constitution mean the opposite of what they say. Frankly, I wouldn't want either side to be near a constitutional convention that's empowered to rewrite a document penned by men more brilliant and civic-minded than our current lot. "Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards," wrote Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis in the 1927 free-speech case, Whitney v. California. "They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty. … If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence." We don't need to revisit the Constitution, but to uphold the protections already within it. This column was first published in The Orange County Register. The post British Attacks on Free Speech Prove the Value of the First Amendment appeared first on
Daily Maverick
4 days ago
- General
- Daily Maverick
SA's shameful hunger epidemic — we need to move beyond donation to legislation
In rural South Africa, women in their sixties are borrowing money from loan sharks to feed their families. Grown men are trying to last for entire days on a single meal from a neighbourhood community kitchen. Children are arriving at school too food deprived to concentrate on their lessons – desperately holding on until lunchtime, when their free school meal provides their only regular source of nourishment. These are the daily realities of a large number of South Africans. It's shameful, because it is an insult to our fellow citizens that they are forced to scratch around, humbling themselves to find food, in a country that produces more than enough to feed everyone every day. An unjust reality The Bill of Rights in the Constitution, in sections 27 (1) b and 28 (1) c, guarantees our people the right to adequate food and water. It's a violation of these rights that so many of our people go hungry. Hunger reduces their ability to function as fully actualised human beings, to care for their families, learn, work, grow, live and love those around them. And this injustice happens at an enormous scale. Springbok rugby captain Siya Kolisi, who grew up in a poor Eastern Cape community, describes the all-encompassing impact of hunger. 'Being hungry is easy and commonplace,' he writes. 'Hunger is different. It's all-consuming. It was all I could feel and all I could think about. My stomach seemed to twist in on itself, and the more I tried to ignore the pain there, the worse it got.' The Unicef Child Food Poverty 2024 Report states that 23% of South African children live with just such a debilitating experience – severe food poverty. Fully 37% – more than a third – of our children suffer from 'moderate' food poverty. As we mark World Hunger Day on 28 May, it is critical that we highlight the causes of this deeply unjust and offensive reality, which confronts vast numbers of our people daily. Those causes are systemic. Because of food industry business models, distribution methods and restrictive legislation, one-third of all the food produced in South Africa – ten million tonnes – goes to waste each year. This is the equivalent of 40 billion meals, in a context where 20 billion meals are needed to provide all of South Africa's hungry people with three meals a day for a year. Innovative solutions FoodForward South Africa (FFSA) works closely with our food system partners to address this senseless waste. Our food banking model connects a world of excess to a world of need, by recovering quality edible surplus food from the consumer goods supply chain and distributing it to community organisations that provide life-saving services in underserved communities. We have made significant progress. In the 2024/25 financial year we distributed 83 million meals through our food banking model, reaching 935,000 vulnerable people daily via a network of 2,500 vetted beneficiary organisations across South Africa. Thanks to support from our food and financial donors, our partners and volunteers, we have been able to achieve a cost per meal of only R0,50 – proving that this model is scalable. We constantly develop new, innovative solutions, making a material difference in communities across the country. One such solution is our digital platform called FoodShare, which manages our Virtual Foodbanking (VFB) module. VFB connects our beneficiary organisations to local retail stores for the regular collection of surplus food. Woolworths, PnP, Spar and Food Lover's Market stores all use FoodShare to ensure their surplus food that is still edible but not selling goes to local communities, and thousands of tonnes of waste is avoided. In the Eastern and Western Cape we launched the Mother and Child Nutrition Programme with the Philani Maternal, Child Health and Nutrition Trust and Grow Great, providing nutritious food parcels to pregnant women and children who have been identified as at risk or malnourished. FFSA provides nutritious food for the whole family, until the mother and/or child gains the necessary weight to live healthily. Our Food Gardens Connect programme provides training to unemployed people in 10 underserved communities. We show people how to grow their own food and give them a starter kit and other inputs; like seedlings. We also offer a guaranteed buy-back of all the produce they grow, so they can earn an income. The programme provides skills, sustenance and new income streams for people in these communities. Systemic causes However, committed as we are to these programmes, the fact remains that food insecurity is a systemic injustice. For that reason, addressing it requires systemic change. Our #RepurposeTheSurplus campaign is dedicated to introducing behavioural change across the food system, while lobbying the government for legislative change. Our goals include the finalisation of a South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) South African National Standard (SANS) for Food Donation – a first for South Africa and the continent. FFSA is on this working group, and we are close to finalising this standard, which food system actors can use to donate food safely. Our second goal is to develop a Food Donations Bill that relaxes the often overstrict safety liability of food donors and redistribution organisations and clarifies the fact that donated food remains safe after the 'sell by' or 'best before' dates. These dates can be misleading and can affect the amount of food that is either wasted or donated by food producers and retailers. The proposed Bill would revise labelling guidelines to encourage the donation of food beyond its 'best before' date and make food donation common practice. In France, a similar law – the 2016 'Garot Law' – mandated that unsold food products from retail stores that are still safe for consumption must be donated, rather than discarded. The outcome has been hugely positive, with nearly 28% more food rescued in France within the first two years of the law being passed. Countries like Italy, Paraguay, Pakistan and the US are all moving towards donating food to reduce the impact of food loss and waste on the environment. Integrated interventions The FFSA model is strategic and scalable and has made a difference to the lives of millions of food-insecure South Africans. But ultimately, if we want this year's World Hunger Day to herald a seismic change, we need to rethink the entire approach to food donation. We need systemic, integrated interventions that address the root causes. These will require: Policy and legislative reforms that support food recovery and redistribution; Collaborative partnerships between the government, the private sector and nonprofit organisations in creating sustainable food systems; and Active involvement from individuals, businesses and organisations in supporting efforts to build a food-secure nation. The need for action is urgent. Thanks to economic and geopolitical trends, inequalities are growing. Climate change is having severe impacts on our food system and we are not making sufficient progress towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. We need to act decisively on a national, strategic level to create a sustainable food system where no South African must be less of a person because they must live with the debilitating pain of being food insecure. DM
