The government cannot turn citizenship into a privilege reserved for those who toe the line, the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) has warned, after International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola backed a proposal to strip South Africans of their citizenship over alleged misinformation abroad.

The proposal, advanced by Supra Mahumapelo, chairperson of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on International Relations and Cooperation, has raised the alarm over the government’s willingness to use state power against its political critics.

In a statement, the IRR has condemned the proposal as a threat to freedom of expression and the rule of law, arguing that political disagreement cannot justify threatening a person’s right to belong to their own country.

Speaking to The Common Sense, the IRR’s project and publications manager Terence Corrigan said: “Citizenship is the condition for participation in a democratic polity. It is a right that precedes all others. It is the ultimate assurance of your right to a place at the national table.”

He pointed out that even people convicted of serious crimes retain their citizenship. The state imprisons murderers and thieves, but does not strip them of their nationality, nor, in South Africa, their ability to vote.

The implication, he argued, is stark: citizenship is being treated as a conditional privilege, dependent on the government’s goodwill rather than a fundamental right.

“We should be very afraid of this,” he said.

Mahumapelo proposed introducing legislation to target South Africans accused of damaging the country’s reputation overseas. He singled out AfriForum, Solidarity, Lex Libertas, and the Freedom Front Plus, blaming their engagements with American political figures and interest groups for worsening relations between Pretoria and Washington.

He also suggested that their activities could amount to treason.

African National Congress (ANC) MP Ronalda Nalumango supported calls for action, questioning the patriotism of those involved and raising the prospect of prosecution.

Lamola told the committee that the executive would examine how it could implement Mahumapelo’s proposals.

“Free agents can’t be allowed to roam with misinformation across the globe about their own country,” the minister said.

No details of a proposed Bill have been made public.

For the IRR, the danger lies in allowing the government to decide which forms of political expression are acceptable and then threaten citizens with the loss of their nationality.

Corrigan said international political campaigning was common practice, not evidence of disloyalty. South African political actors, including the government and the ANC, have themselves taken their causes abroad and sought international support. ANC officials, including President Cyril Ramaphosa, have seldom been reticent to express themselves on divisive United States (US) political issues, such as the Black Lives Matter protests.

“They will describe it as expressing a rich tradition of solidarity,” Corrigan said.

The IRR argues that the activities attributed to the targeted organisations came nowhere near establishing treason or even disloyalty. High treason requires hostile intent directed against the state; criticism of government policy or lobbying foreign politicians does not, by itself, meet that threshold.

It adds that claims that the US would not tolerate its own citizens behaving similarly are also misplaced. Americans routinely criticise their government, including overseas, with freedom of expression protected by the First Amendment, subject to established legal limits.

The South African government remains free to challenge claims it considers false with evidence, argument, and diplomacy. But threatening citizenship takes the dispute into a different and far more dangerous territory.

Corrigan was blunt about what he believes lies behind the proposal.

“This has very little to [do] with principled statecraft or with the rule of law – it’s about wielding state power to threaten its critics,” he said.