Dear Sir or Madam

You may or may not have heard of a person called “Sunette Bridges” or a group called “Boere Krisis Aksie (B.K.A.)”. Both Bridges, an Afrikaans Singer, and the B.K.A., a right wing information group, operate highly controversial pages on Facebook.

We are a group of concerned South African Citizens of all races who have attempted on various occasions to inform Facebook of the horrendous content that not only contributors, but in many instances the owners of these groups themselves post on their pages. We feel that if these comments were written in English, Facebook would have taken very quick action, as it is not only inflammatory but extremely racist and often promote hate speech against black South Africans. We also do not believe that the inflammatory actions of Bridges and the B.K.A. are in any way contributing in a positive manner towards the reconciliation of races in this Country, and their remarks could potentially lead to the stereotyping of white people in this country, whereas a very large majority of White South Africans support and actively vote for the Democratic Alliance, a multi-racial party which openly condemns racism in any form. We are shameful of this vocal minority who claims to be speaking on behalf of all White South Africans.

We urge you to please sign this petition and we want to ask Facebook to permanently shut down these pages, and ban the owners from using Facebook ever again. We believe that the authors of these pages are not contributing to goodwill amongst all South Africans, and that their actions constitutes as Hate Speech. We believe that Facebook has been slow in taking action, as the moderators of Facebook, do not understand the language and the subtleties (usually coded racism) on these pages. We really hope that Facebook will now get the message and take the necessary action.

Some of the comments on these pages include amongst other things:

That former President Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, and the new South African bank notes depicting Mandela should be vandalised.They showed no regard for any of the victims of the Lonmin tragedy. They were celebrating the death of “the barbarians" rather than mourning this terrible occurrence.Xenophobia.That a young multiracial couple should be stoned to death. Black South Africans are regularly referred to as animals or baboons that belong in the Zoo, Uneducated Barbarians without a soul and that they should die, “Kaffers" should be shot and are not human, they are born without brains/ intellectually disabled, it is impossible for black people to be civilized and many more.
Militant incitement: Bridges personally stated that she can't wait for the day that the "Vierkleur” (Old Transvaal Flag and symbol of Apartheid), will be flying again at Church Square in Pretoria. People have been complaining that any person who does not share their political opinion on their pages, are automatically called extremely racist things like k4boeties. (K4 is a code word used on Sunette and the BKA’s pages, for "Kaffir", a derogatory word for black people in South Africa.). Besides white people who complain about their racism, they automatically do not allow coloured, black or Indian people to take part in any discussion.Both Bridges and the B.K.A.’s main objective seem to be fighting what they call "genocide” against white South Africans. Although we do believe strongly that violence in this country is out of control and that the current government should be taken to task for the high murder rate, we do not believe that it is exclusively aimed at white people. Statistics have clearly showed that all South Africans of all races suffer. Bridges and the B.K.A. are quoting “figures” of 600 000 whites living in squatter camps, and Bridges recently claimed that since 1994, 160 000 whites have been murdered, and that half of the murders taking place in South Africa are on white people (remember white people are a minority group that are only 10% of the population). When asked, Sunette Bridges could not substantiate her claims with any peer reviewed research. We have done our own research and spoken to various informed academics, and they were stunned at this ill informed research and manipulated statistics used by Ultra – Right wing groups. These statistics are false, and are a very effective tool used by these anarchists to scaremonger and to promote racism and hate speech in order to promote their own political agenda.

We will greatly appreciate your support in our effort to promote goodwill amongst all South Africans and to ban Racism, Discrimination and Hate Speech on Facebook.

Thank you.

Facebook screencaps are available HERE