Zille refugee tweet taken to SAHRC  

Regan Thaw | 59 min

 

The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) on Thursday confirmed it had received two complaints about a controversial tweet from Western Cape Premier Helen Zille.

In March, the opposition leader referred to pupils who leave the Eastern Cape to attend school in the Western Cape as “refugees”. 

The tweet read:  “While ECape education collapsed, WC built 30 schools – 22 new, 8 replacement mainly 4 ECape edu refugees. 26 MORE new schools coming. [sic]”

This came in the wake of violent protests in Grabouw about overcrowding at a local school.

According to The Times newspaper, youth activist Lukhona Mnguni asked the SAHRC to advise Zille to retract her statement and apologise. 

The commission’s spokesperson Vincent Moaga said the two complaints were lodged in their Gauteng and Western Cape offices. 

(Edited by Zethu Zulu)