Hate-speech judgment – ‘a warning to antisemites’, says Board

Within 24 hours of wannabe comedian Thomas Torr being found guilty of hate speech by the Western Cape High Court in Cape Town, he not only rejected the ruling, but was putting out YouTube videos spewing even more hatred towards Jews and the judge himself.

Judge Andre Le Grange on Friday, 9 May, ordered Torr to issue an unconditional written apology to the South African Jewish community and donate R50 000 to the Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre, both within 30 days.

“I will never apologise to the Holocaust Museum or any institution in Cape Town,” said Torr in his responding video that has since been removed from YouTube. “You owe me an apology. I will never apologise. I will never give you money because you are criminals.

“You are explicitly Nazis,” he said. “You think you are the chosen ones. You are explicitly Nazis, and I’m not going to give Nazis money. You are criminals, and I’m not going to give criminals money. You owe me money.”

Torr then went on to call Le Grange a “f*cking retarded c*nt” and “an Uncle Tom”, and said that if he were to walk down the street, he wouldn’t survive it as people would come and attack him.

In Le Grange’s judgment, he ruled that videos published by Torr on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube during 2023 and 2024 were harmful, incited harm, and propagated hatred as envisaged in Section 10 of the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act (PEPUDA), 2000.

“Unquestionably, any reasonable, objectively, and informed person will understand the sting in the statements,” he said in his judgment. “It is blatant antisemitism speech intended to incite harm, to promote and propagate hatred against Jewish people.”

Should Torr fail to issue his apology within 30 days, the Cape South African Jewish Board of Deputies (Cape SAJBD) can bring a contempt of court application, which would trigger a process that would compel such payments and apology. His continued refusal to follow the rule of law would lead to criminal proceedings against him.

Advocate Mark Oppenheimer said Torr’s statement calling the judge a “c*nt” showed “a refusal to apologise and to abide by the court order. It may amount to contempt of court on two separate bases. One where he directs his abuse at the court itself, the other the refusal to abide by the court’s decisions. It seems that both of those things have occurred.”

Daniel Bloch, the executive director of the Cape SAJBD, said that in view of Torr’s response to the judgment, the Board was engaging with legal counsel to investigate what action could be taken.

“The fact is, he’s come out saying that he refuses to apologise, he’s going to refuse to pay. He’s called Judge La Grange, a few choice names, he’s verbally assaulted the Board again. So, we’re exploring our legal options.”

Torr chose not to be present during court proceedings, and told the court registrar he would “kill him” if he ever met him when he was contacted giving him notification of the court dates. It was just one of his despicable responses to these notifications. The judge took this to mean that Torr, being fully advised and aware of the hearing dates, opted not to answer the allegations against him and had no remorse for his actions.

In the judgment, Le Grange said, “Ignoring the vulgar and crude name-calling, his videos and speech promote horrid and dangerous consequences, including the complete annihilation of Judaism from the world.” He said Torr had called for the death of Jewish children, stripping Jewish people of their human rights, and for them to be punished to the full extent of the law.

Bloch said he hoped the results of this case would send a strong message to others, like Torr, who wish to promote antisemitism.

“There’s a precedent set with the court judgment,” he said. Incredibly, some of the comments following publication of the story in the news, such as on Eyewitness News, had included comments like “Hitler should have finished the job”.

“We’re going to take on those people,” Bloch said. “People need to realise that there are serious consequences for hate speech, for antisemitism, for any form of discrimination. And it’s not just going to be a little slap on the wrist. It’s going to have real-life consequences.”

Bloch said that though some believe the Cape SAJBD went after someone who was just making jokes, that wasn’t the case. “This wasn’t part of an act or comedy show, it was simply his personal views on Jews that were hateful. It was hate speech,” he said.

Said Oppenheimer, “It’s important that when the Jewish community makes complaints, it makes complaints that meet the threshold set by our hate-speech legislation. This is a complaint that met that threshold. Describing Jews as cannibals, rapists, and paedophiles, is quite clearly advocacy of hatred on the grounds of religion. Torr also called for Jews to be stripped of their human rights, which is incitement to harm. There were even calls for Jewish children to be killed. So, it’s quite clear that it meets the threshold set in our law.”

Bloch said that for the Cape SAJBD, the case was a landmark victory in the fight against antisemitic language because it could send a message to those who wished to spread antisemitism and hate speech.

“When was the last time someone posted such vile, antisemitic, hateful comments? Now they’ve been taken to court, and they’ve been held accountable. It’s a message being sent to everyone out there that this isn’t going to be tolerated anymore. So, while it may have been overlooked for a certain time, we’re now going to act against people. And though we’re not saying that antisemitism is going to be quashed, hopefully, it will deter a lot of people from posting things online that are deemed to be hate speech.”