QWELANE CAN’T BE FOUND

The homophobic would-be-ambassador to Uganda, Jon Qwelane, has still not been traced by the Equality Court in order to serve him with legal papers.

The shocking revelation was made by the Human Right Commission to Cobus Fourie from the South African Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (SAGLAAD).

According to the commission’s Jennifer Joni, the clerk of the court has been trying since December last year to serve Qwelane with papers relating to the pending hate speech case against him for his 2008 homophobic article published in the Sunday Sun.

“The problem is that we cannot trace Mr. Qwelane and we have heard in the grapevine that he has been appointed to be an ambassador in Uganda. This could be problematic as he has to be served with the papers for the matter to proceed,” said Joni.

It is unclear how a man that is set to be a government official has disappeared from view and fiasco calls into question the commitment by the authorities to pursue the suit against Qwelane.

“It is not clear at this stage how the court will deal with the issue of Mr. Qwelane’s absence,” added Joni.

The Commission, which is suing both Qwelane and Media 24, the publishers of the Sunday Sun, for R100,000, confirmed however that papers had been succesfully served on Media 24.

It is believed that any money awarded in the case would be paid to the 777 Campaign Against Hate Crimes group which works towards eliminating hate crimes against LGBT people.

In his Call me names, but gay is NOT okay article, Qwelane equated homosexuality with bestiality, praised Robert Mugabe’s oppression of gays and lesbians and encouraged the removal of the sexual-orientation equality clause from the constitution.