CRL Commission rejects damning accusations of irregularities and an agenda for 'state control'
MEDIA BRIEFING
The chairperson of the Commission for the Promotion of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL Rights Commission), Thoko Mkhwanazi-Xaluva, responding to damning allegations made last week by the former chairperson of the commission's Section 22 Committee, Reverend Professor Musa Xulu. She rejected the accusations as false.
Image: Jonisayi Maromo/IOL
The CRL Rights Commission has rejected the allegations made last week by the former chairperson of its Section 22 Committee, Reverend Professor Musa Xulu, who resigned last week and released a damning statement.
Responding to Xulu’s accusations during a media briefing on Wednesday, the CRL Rights Commission chairperson, Thoko Mkhwanazi-Xaluva, said what Xulu is “presenting out there is really not the truth, and we have documentary proof that none of this is true”.
She explained in detail what led to the breakdown of relations with Xulu, culminating in his resignation on the morning of January 15, 2025, the day he addressed a media briefing facilitated by the non-profit organisation, Freedom of Religion South Africa (FOR SA).
The breakdown happened “because his white paper failed dismally”, said Mkhwanazi-Xaluva referring to a document that had been circulated in the Christian community and among theologians and religious leaders on how the sector could be regulated.
Personal Attack
The Commission’s chair also rejected an insulting personal attack containing “innuendos and undertones” by Xulu in which he said she was fixated on FOR SA’s Executive Director Michael Swain.
"Firstly, to say I have a fixation on Michael Swain is a huge insult. I'm an old married woman,” she said.
The Commission assured the religious sector and the general public that the national consultation process aimed at facilitating the crafting a self-regulation regime for the Christian community would continue and that it would be constitutional, fair and inclusive.
The commission referred back all interested parties and citizens to the draft document it released in December to guide the consultative process and repeated its assurances that the agenda was not “state control” or “state versus the church”, but “autonomy with responsibility”. The intention, the commission reiterated, was to deal with the abuse of vulnerable members and followers of churches and other faith-based organisations by religious leaders.
The public was assured at the briefing that the Section 22 Committee and its process would not be collapsed and instead it was hoped that an “action plan” crafted with the involvement of and that “belongs to the church” would be ready in February.