The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) will have to hold a formal hearing regarding a complaint lodged by the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) concerning a broadcast the board alleges was anti-Jewish.
This was the decision on Friday by the Johannesburg High Court and overrules a previous decision by Icasa not to hold a formal hearing.
Yehuda Kay, speaking for the SAJBD, said the matter dated back to May 1998 when Radio 786, a Muslim community radio station in the Western Cape, broadcast a programme that he said featured instances of ”Holocaust denial” and ”anti-Jewish conspiracy theories”.
Kay said denying the Holocaust was offensive to Jewish people and that the tone of the broadcast, which featured an Islamic theologian, was anti-Semitic.
”Denying the Holocaust is equivalent to denying apartheid ever existed,” said Kay.
He said in addition to setting aside the ruling, the court directed Icasa to convene a hearing into the complaint and awarded costs to the SAJBD.
Mervyn Smith, past president of the board, said advocate Roland Sutherland, acting chairperson of Icasa, had in his November 2002 ruling referred to the Holocaust as ”a Second World War programme” and did not think that the denial of it merited a formal hearing by Icasa.
”For nearly six years now, Radio 786 has resisted every attempt at a formal hearing to explain why it broadcast an offensive, harmful and vicious Holocaust denial programme. We have now been vindicated in our pursuit of a hearing, and we will show that broadcasts like this should not be allowed in South Africa,” he said.
Smith said in handing down his judgement, Justice Malan alleged that Sutherland had ”asked himself the wrong question, applied the
wrong test, failed to apply his mind to the relevant issue and based his decision on matters not germane to the issue in deciding whether to convene a formal hearing”.
Kay said the board would be lobbying for an early hearing by Icasa.
”We will be pushing for the case to be heard, that’s for sure.”
A spokesperson for Icasa said there would be no comment until he had consulted with senior members of the organisation.
Radio 786 did not return calls for comment. — Sapa