South African court restricts display of apartheid-era flag

In a landmark ruling, a Johannesburg court on Wednesday barred the unjustified display of South Africa's apartheid-era national flag, saying such gestures amounted to "hate speech" and "harassment".

Judge Phineas Mojapelo said in Johannesburg that any gratuitous display of the old flag was "racist and discriminatory".

"It demonstrates a clear intention to be hurtful, to be harmful and incite harm and it in fact promotes and propagates hatred against black people... it constitutes hate speech".

The ruling followed a petition to the court by the Nelson Mandela Foundation Trust after the flag was displayed in October 2017 by white South Africans protesting at the murders of white farmers.

The judge said those who publicly displayed the flag "wish to remind black people of the oppression, humiliation, indignity, demonisation that they moved away from and do not wish to relive."