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Murder in South Africa Highlights Need for Better Enforcement of Hate Crime Laws

6-15-2012

By Christopher Plummer
Communications

Thapelo MukhutleEarly in the morning on June 9 Thapelo Makhutle, a 23-year old gay South African, was brutally murdered in his home. Reports indicate that two men followed him home after he left a night club and attacked him, killing him and mutilating his body. No suspects have been arrested. The ugliness of this horrific act underscores recent criticisms of South Africa’s failure to adequately deal with hate crime violence.

Thapelo was a talented, well-loved member of his community, an activist who gave his free time to help Legbo Northern Cape, a regional LGBT organization, campaign for the rights of LGBT people.  In South Africa, the constitution protects the right to non-discrimination based on sexual orientation, but too often LGBT individuals are victims of bias-motivated violence.

Recently, Human Rights First called for the United States to support South Africa’s efforts to improve its response to bias-motivated violence. The U.S. government has long supported training programs for police and prosecutors in South Africa in combating sexual and gender-based violence. These efforts could be expanded, in consultation with the government of South Africa, to more explicitly focus on hate crime violence.


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  • Mark Healey

    On Saturday 20th October we are organising a day of Hope and Remembrance for all victims of hate crime, and will be holding a Vigil in Trafalgar Square London. We hope to encourage other places around the UK and abroad to join us and hold their own vigils.

    It is time we all stood up together and demand that hate crime in not acceptable in our communities and do everything we can to work together to tackle it.

    17-24-30 is a small charity in the UK set up to organise and facilitate the April acts of Remembrance to mark the anniversaries of the London Nail Bomb attacks on Brixton, Brick Lane and Soho that took place in April 1999. Our aim is to encourage the communities that were attacked, the Black, Asian and Gay communities to explore ways that we can work together to tackle hate crime in our communities. The first Vigil against Hate Crime took place after the death of Ian Baynham in October 2009, who died after being homophobically beaten in Trafalgar Square – 10,000 people joined us that year.

    We hope that you’ll join us this year.