Bloemfontein court postpones Malema Riotous Assemblies Act matter

6th April 2018 By: African News Agency

 Bloemfontein court postpones Malema Riotous Assemblies Act matter

EFF leader Julius Malema
Photo by: Bloomberg

Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema appeared in the Bloemfontein Magistrate's Court on Friday, where his matter relating to his calls for illegal land occupation was postponed.

Malema faces charges of contravening the Riotous Assemblies Act after calling for land invasions. 

In 2014, at the EFF elective conference in Bloemfontein, Malema told party members that they should occupy the land. 

The EFF leader, who was accompanied on his way to the court by a large crowd of supporters dressed in red t-shirts, will next appear for the same matter on 27 July.

After the brief appearance, Malema told a cheering crowd of his supporters that South Africa "would be boring without white people".

When appearing in court in Bloemfontein on those charges in 2016, he again told supporters who had gathered outside the court to take any “beautiful piece of land” they saw because it was taken from blacks “by genocide”.

Malema’s legal team is disputing the constitutionality of the Riotous Assembly Act. The EFF has accused the State of using “apartheid era laws” to try to silence its critics.

In a separate case, Malema appeared in the Newcastle Magistrate’s Court in July, on common law charges of incitement to commit a crime.

The charge sheet indicates that he is accused of trespassing in contravention of “Section 1(1) Read as Section 2(1) of Trespass Act 6 of 1959 as amended by Criminal Law Amendment Act 59 of 1983”.

In June 2016, Malema told supporters in Newcastle to occupy land because it belonged to blacks -- whites could not claim ownership of land.

He appeared in the Newcastle Magistrate’s Court under the Riotous Assemblies Act and after the postponement, Malema stepped outside the court and told his supporters to “occupy the land because they have failed to give you the land”.

“If it means going to prison for telling you to take the land, so be it. I am not scared of prison because of the land question, but I am scared of prison if I go to prison for corruption. I don’t want to go to prison for corruption, but I want to go to prison for the land,” he said at the time.