By Amanda Khoza
Durban – EFF leader Julius Malema is expected to appear in the Newcastle Magistrate’s Court on Monday for allegedly urging his supporters to invade land.
Malema has been charged with contravening the Riotous Assemblies Act of 1956.
During the party’s elective conference in Bloemfontein in 2014, Malema, reportedly told his supporters: “We are going to occupy the unoccupied land because we need the land. For us to eat‚ we must have the land. For us to work‚ we must have the land. I come from Seshego. If there is unoccupied land‚ we will go and occupy the land with my branch. You must go and do the same in the branch where you come from.”
Civil rights group AfriForum laid the charges against him.
“Malema must realise that his land grab policy will not be executed without opposition. AfriForum will fight any land grab policy with everything in our power,” spokesperson Nantes Kelder told City Press in December 2014.
Malema reportedly told his supporters in Newcastle in June this year that whites had no claim to land in South Africa, because they brought no land with them when they colonised the tip of the continent.
Julius Malema on the land issue: "We remain unshaken, we will take our land".
— Sure Kamhunga (@sure_kamhunga) October 13, 2016
EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said on Sunday that Malema had been charged with an apartheid-era law.
Ndlozi said the law was used in the 1960s to put many liberation fighters behind bars, including the Rivonia triallists.
He questioned how, 22 years after democracy, and on the occasion of the 61st anniversary of the Freedom Charter, Malema could face such charges. According to the charter: “All shall have the right to occupy land wherever they choose”. – News24
Source: http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/malema-in-court-for-land-grab-calls-20161107
