IN March 2025, Somali-born writer and activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali sat down with South African human rights lawyer Mark Oppenheimer for an episode of her podcast titled “South Africa in Decline.” The conversation, later uploaded to YouTube, ranged acr...
Category: Activism
Court Draws a Line Between Protest and Defamation in Cape Union Mart Case
THE Western Cape High Court has handed down a judgment that will likely reshape how activist campaigns in South Africa frame allegations against corporate targets — even as it stops well short of settling the underlying political dispute that sparked it. Judge Cloete's ruling, delivered on 4 Sept...
Lorgat and the ‘firehose of falsehood’
IN 2011 Italian programmer Alberto Brandolini coined what would become known as Brandolini's law, or the asymmetry principle. He contrasted the considerable effort of debunking misinformation with the relative ease of creating it in the first place. The adage states: "The amount of energy needed...
Allegations of Mendelsohn SLAPP case stretch credulity
A PIECE by Hassan Lorgat published by IOL mischaracterises two cases involving UCT professor Adam Mendelsohn. In the first instance, he takes issue with Tali Feinberg's article in Jewish Report on Mendelsohn v Choritz, in the second he condones Megan Choritz's crude criticism of the Mendelsohn le...
PSC Continues to target Jews for being Jews
I ENCOURAGE readers to condemn Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) for targeting businesses merely because some directors happen to be Jewish. There are no 'Cape Union Mart' branches, as its name implies, within Israel, and no connection other than some directors happen to be Jewish. PSG have fai...
Farhud Day, the Name for a Forgotten Catastrophe
ON JUNE 1–2, 1941, as British forces momentarily withdrew from Baghdad, a mob unleashed a systematic slaughter of the city's ancient Jewish community. Nearly 180 Jews were killed, hundreds more wounded, and thousands of homes and businesses were looted and destroyed. The Farhud — Arabic for "viol...