20 February 2025, Andrew Thompson, News24
The director at Media Monitoring Africa, William Bird, said leaders with public platforms like these have a duty to be circumspect and provide evidence for such claims.
“In the current instance, when making a serious allegation and where it is made by such a senior figure of a party, the obvious thing would be to back up the claim with some kind of evidence.
“Certainly, it would make the allegation significantly more damaging if the person was able to support it with some evidence. That said, we should also ask why the interviewer just let that comment go unchallenged. She should have asked Zille what evidence she had that South Africa was acting as Iran’s proxy,” added Bird.