{"id":14934,"date":"2025-11-10T10:36:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T08:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/sa-former-presidents-daughter-back-in-court-over-unrest-charges\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:27:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:27:20","slug":"sa-former-presidents-daughter-back-in-court-over-unrest-charges","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sa-former-presidents-daughter-back-in-court-over-unrest-charges\/","title":{"rendered":"SA former President&#8217;s daughter back in court over unrest charges"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\"><span style=\"background-color: var(--global--color-background); color: var(--global--color-primary); font-family: var(--global--font-secondary); font-size: var(--global--font-size-base);\">The daughter of former President Jacob Zuma, Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, has pleaded not guilty at the commencement of her trial in the Durban High Court in KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa (SA).<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">She is charged in terms of the Terrorism Act and faces one count of incitement to commit the offence of terrorism and two counts of incitement to commit public violence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">The charges relate to her social media posts during the civil unrest in July 2021.<\/p>\n<p>The prosecution, led by Advocate Yuri Gangai, outlined the State&#8217;s case, arguing that Zuma-Sambudla&#8217;s posts on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, were deliberate acts to disturb public discourse and to actively encourage and coordinate the widespread looting and destruction.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Zuma-Sambudla repeatedly posted video clips and images during the unrest, often accompanied by statements such as (We see you).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">The state says these posts violated the Protection of Constitutional Democracy Against Terrorist and Related Activities Act by intending to spread terror and panic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Defence Advocate Dali Mpofu told the court that Zuma-Sambudla&#8217;s posts were merely an observation of the widespread frustration and poverty, and a show of solidarity with citizens, not an act of incitement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">The state has called its first witness to the stand, Major-General Gopaul Govender, who was the National Co-ordinator of the civil unrest.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Govender is on the stand detailing how 103 persons of interest were identified by the Hawks from eight WhatsApp groups in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\"><span style=\"background-color: var(--global--color-background); color: var(--global--color-primary); font-family: var(--global--font-secondary); font-size: var(--global--font-size-base);\">&#8211;SABC&#8211;<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14935,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-14934","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":null,"news_description":"Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla has pleaded not guilty","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/14934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/14934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19382,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/14934\/revisions\/19382"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=14934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}