Four white South Africans fined for racist college video

Article from Borneo Bulletin Weekend. Published on Saturday Jul, 31 2010

South African former University students (L to R) Danie Grobler, RC Malherbe, Johnny Roberts and Schalk van der Merwe stand in Bloemfontein Magistrate's court on July 28 in Bloemfontein. The white South African ex-students were sentenced Friday to pay a fine of 20,000 rand (2,740 dollars) each or serve 12 months in prison for making a racist video which shocked the country. AFP

JOHANNESBURG (dpa) - Four white South African ex-students were sentenced Friday to pay a fine of 20,000 rand (2,740 dollars) each or serve 12 months in prison for making a racist video which shocked the country.

The footage, posted online in 2008, showed the students forcing five unwitting workers to eat food in which one of the students had apparently urinated and showed a cleaning lady being forced to play rugby.

The case raised troubling questions about the true state of race relations in South Africa.

RC Malherbe, Johnny Roberts, Schalk van der Merwe and Danie Grobler earlier this week pleaded guilty to pleaded at Bloemfontein's Magistrates Court to charges of crimen injuria, or damaging the dignity of the workers.

The admitted they had tricked black campus staff into performing humiliating tasks in the 2007 video.

The workers said the students led them to believe they were making a film about racial integration at the campus in the central city of Bloemfontein.

Bloemfontein is a Afrikaner bastion, home to a large number of white South Africans who are descended from Dutch settlers.

Coming 14 years after the end of racist white rule in South Africa, the film showed there was still many obstacles in reconciling the black majority and white minority.

The four, suspended by the university, claimed they had meant the video as a protest against plans by the university to make the campus more racially mixed and insisted the food had not been urinated on.

Last year the new black rector of the university, Jonathan Jansen, extended a hand of forgiveness to the offenders on his arrival and invited them back to study.

Many black and white South Africans criticised the move, accusing Jansen of jumping the gun and being too quick to forgive. Two of the former students had already finished their studies. The other two did not register for the 2010 academic year.