Renaldo Gouws File picture: Henk Kruger / Independent
The South African Human Rights Commission’s litigation against Renaldo Gouws will go ahead in the Gqeberha High Court on Thursday.
The SAHRC is taking the former Democratic Alliance MP to task over his alleged hate speech.
“This action stems from a video in which Gouws allegedly calls for the killing of Black people, using highly offensive and derogatory language published on his YouTube channel in March 2010. The videos were later deleted but resurfaced through archived content,” the SAHRC said.
In June, IOL reported on a video that had emerged of Gouws "appearing to spew hate speech“.
At the time, this was believed to have been a second video following a previous clip in which Gouws says "Alright so there’s a couple of things I want to say. Kill the f***ing k***irs, kill all the f***ing n*ggers. That’s all I gotta f***ing say. Kill all the k***irs! Kill all the f***ing n*ggers!".
Gouws later apologised for the videos, conceding that he was "young and immature" at the time the videos were shared. He went on to insist that he was not racist.
The DA then suspended Gouws once it was established that the video was not a fake.
Despite his suspension from the DA, Gouws continued his work as a Member of Parliament.
Gouws was spotted among his colleagues at the induction where members were informed of the roles and functions of the committee and on the key issues that emerged from the 6th Parliament.
In September, two months of the IOL's exposé, the DA confirmed the termination of Gouws' membership.
The party's national spokesperson, Willie Aucamp, said this meant Gouws also lost his seat is Parliament.
"This decision follows a thorough investigation conducted by the DA’s Federal Legal Commission (FLC) into the allegations against Mr Gouws. The FLC found Mr Gouws guilty of contravening several sections of the DA’s constitution," Aucamp said.
Gouws blamed his firing from the DA on IOL and approached the Press Council of South Africa which ruled against IOL, claiming the online publication contravened certain sections of the Press Code. However, IOL was granted leave to appeal the ruling.
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