By Diana Rose Wairumbi
The first South African convicted for racist slurs will serve a full three-year prison sentence after a court on Wednesday rejected her application to appeal.
Vicki Momberg, 49 who was a former realtor, was last month convicted for repeatedly ‘throwing’ racist insults including the word “kaffir” at a black policeman.
Momberg was found guilty of crimen injuria, wilfully hurting someone’s dignity.
Her appeal attempt was dismissed by Magistrate Pravina Rugoonandan, saying the sentence was “fair and just”.
Momberg was caught on video verbally abusing the officer who was trying to assist her following a break-in of her car in 2016. She used the term “kaffir” 48 times.
In South Africa this was the first case to send a person to prison for crimen injuria. Previous convictions have typically resulted in fines.
The word “kaffir” is “an embodiment of racial supremacy and hatred, all wrapped in one,” the magistrate said.
“The K-word is unique in South African conscience and one which is so deeply linked with the painful past of emotional abuse, political violence and economic dispossession.”
Momberg showed no sign of remorse as she was led back to the cells.
Her case brought to the spotlight racial divisions in South Africa a generation after the end of apartheid rule.
Several protesters in court on Wednesday applauded the ruling and wore T-shirts with the slogan “we are one”.
Simamkele Mabeta, 24, said that seven years would have been the most appropriate.
Sharon Henderson was of a different school of thought. She was a sympathiser who handed Momberg a bottle of water during the hearing. Henderson says the ruling is “really unfair”.
“The magistrate accused her of being responsible of the whole of South Africa’s race problems,” she said.
