Court upholds ban on South Africa’s apartheid-era flag

By GERALD IMRAY
Associated Press

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal has upheld a ruling that the “gratuitous” public display of the country’s old apartheid-era flag amounts to hate speech and racial discrimination and can be prosecuted. The Supreme Court didn’t, however, give a ruling Friday on whether displaying the national flag from South Africa’s era of brutal racial segregation in the privacy of a home should also be considered hate speech or discriminatory. Arguments over that specific matter should first be presented to the lower court that initially banned the flag in 2019, the Supreme Court said. The old flag was used by South Africa from 1928 until it was abolished when the country achieved democracy in 1994.