The Free Speech Union of South Africa (FSU-SA) this week called on Supra Mahumapelo, the African National Congress (ANC) chairperson of Parliament’s International Relations Committee, to withdraw his proposal for a law that would strip South Africans of their citizenship for spreading what he regards as misinformation about the country abroad.

The union, which relaunched in May and which is headed by advocate Mark Oppenheimer, also asked Parliament to reject any attempt to make citizenship conditional on political conformity, and asked International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola to confirm that South Africans remain free to lobby foreign governments.

Mahumapelo made the proposal last week. He said that the lobbying of a number of organisations in Washington DC, including AfriForum, Solidarity, Lex Libertas, and the Freedom Front Plus, were to blame for South Africa’s strained relations with the United States, and suggested the conduct could amount to treason. He also had said in a television interview: “We need to look at the law that there be consequences to denouncing your own country.”

Minister Lamola backed Mahumapelo and said: “Free agents can’t be allowed to roam with misinformation across the globe about their own country.” He added: “We will also look into the same issue on our side as the executive and see how we can match your proposals.”

Ryan Smith, international relations spokesperson for the Democratic Alliance, said that legislating against expression would breach the constitutional right to free speech. However, Lamola argued that free speech has limits where lies and misinformation are concerned.

Oppenheimer, the FSU-SA's head, said labelling criticism as misinformation does not remove its constitutional protection, and that handing politicians the power to threaten a critic’s citizenship “would place an extraordinary weapon in the hands of the very people whose conduct is being questioned”.

No Bill has been drafted or tabled as yet but it is chilling that senior government leaders are even willing to consider such a move.