The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) on Tuesday condemned recent comments attributed to EFF leader Julius Malema — at least at first sight — as amounting to hate speech.

They were referring to a video shared on his Twitter feed in which he paid tribute to the late former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe.

The tweet, published on September 14 with the words “Rest in power #GUSHUNGO” featured a video with quotes by Mugabe. “The only white man you can trust is a dead white man,” read one of the quotes alongside a picture of Mugabe.

Malema later shared a message, accompanied by the words “Stratcom #GUSHUNGO”, from Twitter, saying it had “investigated the reported content and could not identify any violations of the Twitter Rules”.

Stratcom refers to dirty tricks or disinformation under the old apartheid regime.