Demonstrators have
protested against racism outside a South African court where two white
men face assault charges for allegedly forcing a black man into a coffin
and threatening to set him on fire.
The two accused,
Willem Oosthuizen and Theo Martins Jackson, appeared briefly in the
Magistrates Court in Middelburg, east of Pretoria, on Wednesday before
the case was postponed until January 25.
The men will remain in custody until the case resumes.
The 20-second
video, which was widely circulated on social media, shows the victim,
Victor Rethabile, cowering inside a coffin as one man pushes a lid on
his head and the other threatens to put petrol and a snake inside the
coffin.
Rethabile escaped, although it is not clear how. He told reporters outside court he wanted justice.
"They were accusing me of trespassing. They beat me up and forced me into the coffin," he said.
The left-wing
Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, which campaigns for a more even
distribution of wealth between white and black South Africans, led a
rally outside the court.
"This humiliation
can be based on nothing else but his blackness, which means it is in
actual fact a humiliation of black people as a whole," the EFF said in a
statement.
Hundreds of South Africans condemned the white men's behaviour on social media under the hashtag #coffinAlive.
Black people make
up 80 percent of South Africa's 54 million population. However, most of
the economy remains in the hands of white people, who account for about 8
percent of the population.
(Story from Aljazeera)
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