President Cyril Ramaphosa says there is no place for religious intolerance in South Africa. <\/p>\n
He said this when he responded to oral questions in the National Assembly on Thursday. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no place for religious intolerance of any sort in the democratic South Africa.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur Constitution is clear that no person may be discriminated against on the basis of, among other things, religion, conscience, belief, culture or language,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The President said this after a question was raised regarding rumours of extremist groups, alleged to be adherents of Islam, were on the rise in certain parts of the republic \u2013 sentiments which have been seen to be Islamophobic. <\/p>\n
Responding to the question, the President said even as the country grapples with a past that is riddled with divisions and conflict, South Africa is a society characterised by religious tolerance and a deep respect for the great diversity of beliefs and cultures that exist in South Africa. <\/p>\n
He said government has established institutions and enacted legislation to prevent discrimination, hate speech and intolerance, and to promote understanding, friendship and respect.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of the Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities, for example, is established in terms of the Constitution and has a broad mandate to promote and advance tolerance, friendship, humanity and national unity.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act of 2001 prohibits hate speech and provides for Equality Courts at which complaints of discrimination and allegations of hate speech are adjudicated.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn short, South Africa has a progressive consitutional and legislative framework to address intolerance, hate speech and discrimination,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The President said, however, that while these formal mechanisms are important, they are not enough on their own to end the victimisation or vilification of any particular grouping in our country.<\/p>\n
He said there was a need for a conscious and deliberate effort across society to prevent intolerance \u2013 whether this takes the form of Islamophobia or anti-Semitism, whether it is sexism or xenophobia.<\/p>\n
This would require a clear condemnation of all overt acts of intolerance and a greater awareness about the more subtle ways in which prejudices can be expressed and reinforced.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis places a responsibility on media outlets, officials, leaders and members of the public in general to avoid language that casts aspersions on a particular religion, cultural group, language or race.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the laws and institutions we have in place \u2013 which will be reinforced by the passage of the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill \u2013 we have a robust legal framework to deal with anyone promoting discrimination and intolerance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe greater challenge we have, which is a responsibility we all share, is to work together to rid our society of such attitudes and practices altogether.\u201d \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President Cyril Ramaphosa says there is no place for religious intolerance in South Africa. He said this when he responded to oral questions in the National Assembly on Thursday. \u201cThere is no place for religious intolerance of any sort in the democratic South Africa. \u201cOur Constitution is clear that no person may be discriminated against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-171932","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-sanews","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171932\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}