Don't exaggerate.

This was International Relations and Cooperation Minister Lindiwe Sisulu's message to AfriForum, the conservative so-called civil rights organisation whose members recently travelled to the US where they met with conservative think tanks, Republican senator Ted Cruz's staff and did an interview with Fox News – the White House's news channel of choice.

Their aim was to lobby role players in the US about what they call the "persecution" of Afrikaners, especially with relation to farm murders and Parliament's decision to start a process to review section 25 of the Constitution with an eye on making expropriation without compensation possible.

Upon their return, AfriForum CEO Kallie Kriel said "you cannot equate crimes against humanity with apartheid" because according to him millions were killed during the Holocaust compared to what he estimated to be around hundreds of people killed by the apartheid regime.

Asked what she made of AfriForum's travels, Sisulu started her answer by saying AfriForum had the right to go and "lobby for whatever they want to lobby for".

"What we find very offensive, is when they exaggerate the situation," she said.

Blatant lies

She said she had seen several video clips that the organisation had sent out.

"We have over and over indicated that the issue of land is in the Constitution," she said.

She said since 1994 the government had been very cautious in implementing land reform.

"Our people are growing agitated," she said.

She said Parliament came to its decision on expropriation without compensation and it would be debated very seriously.

"The horror stories about what is going on in South Africa [are] blatantly false," she said.

"We condemn what they're doing there and we ask them to stop."

She said while AfriForum couldn't be stopped from going overseas to see people, she appealed to them "as South Africans" to refrain from spreading exaggerated views about what was happening in South Africa.