This morning the Pretoria High Court heard former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng’s, challenge to the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA)’s sanction against her, in response to the South African Zionist Federation’s (SAZF) complaint against her for supposed misconduct. In the wake of HPCSA’s decision last year, the South African Jews for Free Palestine (SAJFP) members, alongside thousands of health care professionals and individuals concerned with Israel’s targeting of healthcare facilities and practitioners in Gaza as a tactic of genocide, called on the HPCSA to withdraw its misplaced and politically motivated sanction against Dr Mofokeng.
It is shameful that, unlike the South African Medical Association (SAMA), over the last three years the HPCSA has remained silent with regard to the Zionist state’s systematic annihilation of Gaza and the Palestinian people’s right to life. According to numerous international organisations and UN bodies, Israel’s actions amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, for which the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Instead of expressing concern over this, the HPCSA decided to take up a complaint by the SAZF against Dr Mofokeng, for comments she made against the same war criminal in her personal capacity, as a free South African citizen and political being. It is shameful that HPCSA allowed itself to be manipulated by the evidently partisan, racist action of the SAZF and failed to protect its own highly acclaimed and internationally respected member.
We have stated before and affirm again that as a doctor, human rights activist and a moral being, Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng has every right to speak up against political leaders who are perpetrating the genocidal destruction of healthcare facilities and obstruct, in the most violent ways, Palestinian’s right to access healthcare. The HPCSA had no jurisdiction over Dr Mofokeng’s free expression in her personal capacity, and her comments decrying Netanyahu and UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer had nothing to do with her professional practice despite the SAZF’s claims.
Today, this has been resoundingly confirmed at the High Court, and we welcome with relief the ruling to set aside the HPCSA’s sanction against Dr Mofokeng and dismiss the SAZF complaint as lacking any ground. South Africans’ right to name and condemn crimes against humanity must be protected against SLAPP suits. Zionists must not define what can be said about atrocities committed by Zionists. We must all cherish and use our right to speak up against the Israeli genocide and stand in solidarity with Palestinians’ right to life and self-determination.
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