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South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) has called for “punitive and corrective” action to be taken against a woman who purportedly made racist remarks about black people on Facebook.

In a statement, the party’s Western Cape region said:

Vanessa Hartley, a resident of Hout Bay, has written an offensive Facebook post which says ‘They are like stupid animals. We should tie them to a rope. Too many Africans flocking to Hout Bay. Draw up a petition. Soon there will be nothing left of Hout Bay’.

We reject Vanessa Hartley’s racist rants as both a distorted view of what this country is about and certainly not representing the majority of our people in this province.

We request that the South African Human Rights Commission apply maximum punitive and corrective measures within their domain to ensure that this kind of behaviour is rejected and abandoned.”

Ms Hartley has not yet commented on the ANC’s statement.