The Human Rights Commission is taking Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema to the Equality Court for hate speech.

Malema posted a tweet after the death of former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe earlier this month in which he said: “the only white man you can trust is a dead white man”.

Commission chair Bongi Majola said that Malema’s comments were divisive and threatened social cohesion.

“The words in the tweet are divisive and they’re inimical to the spirit of the Constitution, its values in particular, the values of equality, human dignity and non-racialism.”

The commission said that Malema still needed to be served with court papers once they had been finalised.