Speaker accedes to first farm murder debate in parliament

At the request of the FF Plus, an urgent debate on farm murders will be held in parliament on Tuesday 14 March 2017. According to Dr. Pieter Groenewald, FF Plus leader, the Speaker initially refused the debate because she didn’t consider it urgent enough or to be in national interest. Following talks with her about the matter, she has now conceded that it is urgent enough and in the public’s interest.

The FF Plus has for years been busy with a campaign to bring the seriousness of farm murders to the attention of the media and all the residents of South Africa, but also to that of the international community. In 1997 the FF Plus highlighted the farm murder situation for former president Mandela and presented a comprehensive crime prevention plan to the government at the time. Following this, marches were held nearly every year, crosses planted and in 2004, 60 pairs of shoes were used during a media event to indicate how many people were murdered in South Africa every day, which left empty shoes behind. On the photo above, Dr. Pieter Mulder, former leader of the FF Plus and Dr. Pieter Groenewald, the current leader of the party, can be seen planting a cross as part of the commemoration event in 2010 for all the victims of farm murders.

The campaign was also expanded to the international community when the FF Plus submitted a complaint to the High Commissioner of the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) in 2001 and handed a video about farm murders to the president of the United States of America and the German Chancellor. Dr. Pieter Mulder and Mr. André Fourie had at various times held talks with members of the European Union Parliament in Strasbourg about farm murders, while the FF Plus’s motions on farm murders were accepted unanimously at different UNPO conferences in Geneva and Brussels and handed to the UNHRC.