Artist paints Nazi symbols on his home
szaki
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=vn20050809072216663C575439
Artist paints Nazi symbols on his home
August 09 2005 at 10:48AM
By Zinkie Sithole
An artist is to appear in the Equity Court this week in the first human
rights trial for anti-Semitic behaviour in post-apartheid South Africa.
Gerhard Barkhuis admits painting the Nazi flag, complete with a large
swastika, on a prominent wall facing the entrance to the home of his
Jewish neighbour, Yaron Fishman, just outside White River in
Mpumalanga.
The phrase "spiteful bastards" has also been spray-painted on the
wall in Hebrew alongside the swastika, as part of a graffiti wall
Barkhuis claims he is creating to commemorate the pain caused by
political strife.
'My grandmother was murdered by the Nazis in the Transnistria
concentration camp'
But the garish symbols have outraged the Fishman family and the SA
Jewish Board of Deputies, which both asked the SA Human Rights
Commission to investigate. Fishman has also lodged a separate crimen
injuria complaint with the police, who have opened a criminal docket.
"We are investigating a case of hate speech, the first involving
anti-Semitic sentiments in the province. When the case is presented to
the Equity Court this week, it will be the first trial on an
anti-Semitic matter in post-apartheid South Africa," said SAHRC
operations director Tselo Thipanyane.
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Fishman said he'd turned to the courts because his Israeli father was
scheduled to visit in September, and as a holocaust survivor he'd be
"devastated' if he saw the Nazi symbols.
"My grandmother was murdered by the Nazis in the Transnistria
concentration camp, and my grandfather only narrowly survived. To make
him relive the suffering and torture he underwent is incredibly
cruel," said an emotional Fishman.
"To deliberately paint a swastika in front of our house, knowing we
are Jews, is just as hurtful... and should not be allowed in a South
Africa that prides itself on its human rights record."
But Barkhuis remains defiant. He insisted that South Africa's
constitution guaranteed him freedom of expression and that Fishman and
the SAHRC had misinterpreted his artistic expression as a personal
attack.
"I painted these images because I lived through the trauma of
apartheid and the liberation struggle. My graffiti wall is supposed to
reflect and comment on the pain caused by all political strife.
"To say I am targeting Fishman is lies, all lies. Claims that I am a
Nazi or fascist are heartbreaking and tearing my family apart."
tur...@shaw.ca
>
>Artist paints Nazi symbols on his home
jobb ha errol rofogsz
muszaki dolgokhol f. vagy
szaki
Nocak, a Torok fenykepesz muszaki zseninek tartja magat, egyer
fiatalkoraban bevert egy szoget.
Lololo!
JS