An ANC MP wants to strip citizenship over what South Africans say abroad. A minister agreed

Six words. That is all Section 20 of South Africa's Constitution says: "No citizen may be deprived of citizenship."

On 8 October, a committee room in Parliament tested those six words.

The chairman of Parliament's Portfolio Committee on International Relations, Supra Mahumapelo, proposed a law that would let the state take citizenship from South Africans who spread what he sees as misinformation about the country abroad. The Minister of International Relations, Ronald Lamola, backed him.

Critics call it citizenship for loyalists only. Google searches show people asking if the ANC can now take away your citizenship for criticising it. Let us start with what was actually said.

What did the ANC actually propose about citizenship?

The proposal came from one ANC MP in one committee meeting. It was not a party policy document and it was not a bill.

Mahumapelo spoke on 8 October while the committee reviewed the Department of International Relations and Cooperation's financial statements. EWN reported that he proposed legislation "to give effect to provisions of the Constitution that allow for citizenship to be stripped." Nothing we found shows a bill has been tabled.

He blamed the poor state of relations between Pretoria and Washington on four groups. They are AfriForum, Solidarity, Lex Libertas and the Freedom Front Plus. He also suggested that their talks with members of the US Congress might amount to treason, according to the Daily Friend.

Here is who said what.

Did the ANC say it would take citizenship from critics?

Not in those words. This matters, so it needs a plain answer.

In everything we could trace, nobody said critics of the ANC at home would lose their passports. The target, as described by those who were in the room, is speech about South Africa abroad, especially to US lawmakers.

Critics read it more widely. The Daily Friend headline says the idea would limit citizenship to loyalists. The Institute of Race Relations says Mahumapelo's treason suggestion "has no legal foundation." It adds that a government that answers its critics by threatening their citizenship "would do more harm to South Africa's reputation abroad than any lobby group in Washington."

A YouTube video from the Willem Petzer channel, seen about 79,000 times, claims the ANC has introduced a law to strip Freedom Front Plus supporters of citizenship for "high treason." We found no bill and no such wording in any source. It is a claim from that video, not a fact from Parliament.

Photo: Mihi tr / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0

What did Lamola say, and what did the DA ask?

Lamola did not shy away. He told the committee that "free agents can't be allowed to roam with misinformation across the globe," according to the Daily Friend. EWN quotes it as "free agents can't be allowed to roam with misinformation across the globe about their own country."

He said the executive, meaning the President and Cabinet, would consider how to match the committee's proposals.

Then the DA's Ryan Smith objected. A law like this, he said, would infringe the constitutional right to free speech. Lamola replied that free speech has limits when it comes to lies and misinformation. That part of his answer is accurate in law. Section 16 of the Constitution does not protect propaganda for war, incitement of violence or hate speech.

But Section 16 has never been used to cancel a citizenship. That is the gap the fight is about.

What does Section 20 of the Constitution say?

Section 20 is a single sentence: "No citizen may be deprived of citizenship."

It sits in the Bill of Rights, which also guarantees free speech in Section 16. The Bill of Rights binds Parliament and the executive.

The test came over the Citizenship Act. Section 6(1)(a) stripped South Africans of citizenship automatically if they took another country's citizenship without the minister's permission. The Democratic Alliance challenged it. In the High Court, Judge Jody Kollapen upheld it. He drew a line between "loss" and "deprivation." Later rulings struck the section down as unconstitutional, though we could not confirm the exact order and date of the final Constitutional Court ruling, so check the judgment before you rely on it.

That court fight is the closest thing South Africa has to a map of this one.

Photo: Ruby D-Brown / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0

Has the ANC tried to strip citizenship over speech before?

There is a pattern, and people on social media are quick to point it out.

In February 2025, the MK Party opened a treason case against AfriForum at a Cape Town police station. It followed US President Donald Trump's attack on South Africa's land law. AfriForum's chief executive, Kallie Kriel, called the case absurd and said there were no legal grounds. The Hawks later said they were looking into treason dockets.

In March 2025, President Cyril Ramaphosa said he took a very negative view of groups going around the world and bad-mouthing their own country. He also said the National Prosecuting Authority would decide whether treason applied. We found no charge that went to court.

The same week as Mahumapelo's proposal, the ANC's national spokesperson, Mahlengi Bhengu, spoke about citizenship from another angle. On 8 October she said the Constitutional Court's refugee ruling does not award citizenship, as Polity reported. We covered the fallout when Home Affairs pulled its asylum directive after 11 days. The party is also fighting claims that foreigners are registering to vote, which we looked at in the ANC voter registration claim.

So citizenship is already a hot word in ANC politics this month. Local elections are on 4 November.

What do the four named groups say?

We did not find any reply from AfriForum, Solidarity, Lex Libertas or the Freedom Front Plus to this proposal. A Kouga News post on Facebook says Lex Libertas, led by executive director Ernst Roets, criticised proposals that could result in prosecution, but the post is cut off in the clip.

What we do have is the Institute of Race Relations. It says one may dispute every claim these groups make and still defend their right to make them. It adds that Americans criticise their government abroad as a matter of routine, protected by the First Amendment, so Mahumapelo's argument that the US would never allow it is mistaken.

Its closing line is about reputation. If South Africa is being misrepresented abroad, it says, the government can answer with evidence, argument and diplomacy.

Can Parliament actually do this?

That is where lawyers will spend the next few weeks.

Section 20 says "deprived." The Constitution also says, in Section 3(3), that national legislation must provide for the acquisition, loss and restoration of citizenship. We do not know which of the two Mahumapelo's "provisions" refers to, because EWN does not quote him on it.

Any bill would need to go through Parliament and public comment. Courts have already told the state that taking citizenship away, even automatically, needs a reason a court will accept. Statelessness is also not allowed under international law.

For now it is a proposal, a promise to look into it and a lot of anger.

One word may decide the whole fight. The Constitution says citizens cannot be "deprived." It also says the law must provide for "loss." A judge once drew a line between them. Whoever wins that argument decides who keeps a passport.