PORT Elizabeth attorney Maureen Jansen has joined the ranks of South Africans who have recently found themselves in the cross-hairs over discriminatory comments made on social media. The SA Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) yesterday lodged a complaint of hate speech against Jansen with the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) in the Eastern Cape, for allegedly referring to Jews as “monsters” who should be “exterminated”. The Facebook post read: “Bloody Israelis should be exterminated along with all the ‘Jews’ everywhere who support Israel by action or silence. “The Semites of the Torah are long gone. “These monsters are Jewish converts, not Semites.” Jansen said yesterday she could not confirm those were her words because her Facebook account had been locked and she could not access it.
But she did not deny making the remarks. “I have made statements on Facebook. They would have related to some kind of atrocity happening in the West Bank or Gaza,” she said. SAJBD chairman Jeff Katz said it was important to name and shame Jansen in light of the recent slew of racist remarks on social media. “Such hate-mongering goes beyond defaming and threatening any particular group of people, [it goes] against the culture of non-racialism on which our democracy is founded,” Katz said. Former KwaZulu-Natal estate agent Penny Sparrow, Standard Bank economist Chris Hart and Gauteng Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation official Velaphi Khumalo have all come under fire recently for making racially charged comments on social media. SAHRC spokesman Isaac Mangena confirmed a complaint was laid against Jansen. It was being assessed before an investigation might begin. Jansen said she had received more than 200 threatening phone calls in the past month and planned to lay criminal complaints against those she had identified.