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By HASSEN LORGAT
Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng secured a decisive High Court victory after the Health Professions Council of South Africa agreed to set aside its misconduct finding and dismiss the South African Zionist Federation’s complaint against her entirely.
“Today, I declare victory against imperialism and Zionism,” Dr Mofokeng said outside the Pretoria High Court on September 9, 2026.
The victory was expressed in restrained terms in an agreement made an order of court. The parties agreed to set aside the HPCSA disciplinary committee’s finding of unprofessional conduct against Dr Mofokeng, as if the decision had never been made. The First Medical and Dental Committee of Preliminary Inquiry’s September 2025 finding that Dr Mofokeng was guilty of unprofessional conduct for “using inappropriate language on social media”, together with the R10 000 fine, was reviewed and set aside.
The order also records that all subsequent steps are void and that there are no grounds to continue investigating or prosecuting the complaint. Simply put, the original complaint lodged by the South African Zionist Federation (SAZF) in March 2025 was formally dismissed. Each party will pay its own costs.
While this may look like a narrow medico-legal ruling, it has wide implications for pro-Palestine activists such as Dr Mofokeng, also known as Dr T, in South Africa and beyond. It also marks the beginning of a long-overdue process of transformation for an institution that still has to shed its colonial and apartheid roots.
However, Zionist propagandists, including commentators, influencers and some publications, sought to deflect attention from the victory of Dr Mofokeng and her supporters. Some of their arguments are obscure, but I understand them as follows:
- The HPCSA declined to defend its own ruling.
- The dramatic reversal apparently followed an intervention by the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco). Its director-general, Zane Dangor, advised the HPCSA that Dr Mofokeng enjoyed immunity from legal process. This information was contained in a letter to the SAZF dated June 7, 2026, after the portfolio committee hearing discussed below.
- Dangor is targeted and portrayed as opposing the government’s trend towards “toenadering” with Zionism.
- Kamohelo Chauke, consistently described as a “student activist”, suggested in a September 8, 2026, Business Day opinion article that the public-interest law centre SECTION27 was wrong to represent an EFF mayoral candidate.
These are attempts to distract the public from the merits of the case. More importantly, they seek to undermine continuing efforts in the media, the portfolio committee and elsewhere to expose the role of the HPCSA and its deference to complaints by the SAZF.
Let me take you back so that we can understand the story from the beginning.
The complainants
The SAZF was the complainant in this matter. Formed in 1898, it is the umbrella body for the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) and other pro-Israel groups in South Africa, including the South African Friends of Israel. Its mandate states that it “looks after matters relating to Israel and its image in South Africa”.
In January 2025, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a brief delay in the Gaza ceasefire, the SAZF complained to both the United Nations (UN) and the HPCSA about a post by Dr Mofokeng. On January 19, 2025, she had responded to an Al Jazeera report on the delay with “F*ck him” in a post that was later deleted. The SAZF complaint also cited a reply she made to UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, who had pressured the UN to act against her: “You white man. Evil scum. Voetsek.”
I have previously argued that it is profoundly ironic that the SAZF complained to the HPCSA about Netanyahu’s “dignity” being wounded by a private “FU” post. Yet media outlets that repeated the SAZF’s press release, notably Sunday World, failed to extend Dr Mofokeng the same courtesy by seeking her response.
This is a scandalous double standard. The HPCSA appeared willing to pursue a South African UN Special Rapporteur for political commentary while refusing to entertain complaints from healthcare professionals calling on it to condemn the genocide in Gaza. Meanwhile, Netanyahu, a fugitive from international justice, was protected by the same body.
UN Watch and spying on UN officials
The complaint against Dr T originated with UN Watch, a body that Spinwatch has described as an Israeli government front organisation. UN Watch has a history of targeting UN rapporteurs. It falsely claimed that Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, had called Israel “the common enemy of humanity” in a video. The video was later shown to have been maliciously edited, but by then the damage had been done.
Rapporteurs such as Dr Mofokeng and Albanese have long complained about Zionist pressure on the UN. In August 2025, Drop Site News published an explosive article headlined “For Your Eyes Only: Israel’s Mole Inside the United Nations”.
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The article deals with hacked emails from Ron Prosor, Israel’s former UN ambassador, showing that he gave Israeli diplomats advance warning of UN investigations. One email was marked: “For your eyes only. Do not forward.” This gave Israel a head start in lobbying against UN initiatives, including the 2014 Gaza inquiry. A UN oversight body is now investigating whether other UN staff were involved.
This context matters because it shows how easily some media and public bodies were co-opted. The UN itself was slow to defend Dr Mofokeng, a sign of the pressure it faces from the global right and Zionist interests.
The SAZF’s role in institutional capture
At home, the agent was the SAZF, the parent body of South African Zionist organisations.
It lodged the complaint with the Health Professions Council and celebrated when the body fined Dr Mofokeng. Its press release was headlined “HPCSA sanctions UN Special Rapporteur Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng for unprofessional conduct”.
The SAZF welcomed the ruling that she was “guilty of unprofessional conduct for using abusive and inappropriate language on social media and for bringing the medical profession into disrepute”.
The gullible media
In its media release, the SAZF said the matter had been reported by News24, Ynet News and the South African Jewish Report as a serious breach of professionalism and decorum. It failed to mention that the Sunday World report, which was the subject of my complaint, was essentially copied and pasted from the release. I made this argument in my submission to the Press Council, which ruled against me at the first stage and again on appeal before Judge Bernard Ngoepe.
In brief, my complaint against Sunday World concerned my right to express solidarity with Dr Mofokeng, the newspaper’s failure to give her a right of reply in a report about her and what I regarded as work favouring a Zionist body rather than journalism. The newspaper ignored the basic argument made by the EFF, Health Workers 4 Palestine and others: Dr Mofokeng was performing UN duties, not working as a medical doctor. Dr T’s comments about Netanyahu, who is subject to an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, were made in her personal capacity.
The HPCSA on its knees
The HPCSA is South Africa’s primary body for regulating the conduct of health professionals. It oversees 12 professional boards, with more than 180 000 active practitioner registrations nationwide. It was established as a statutory body under section 2 of the Health Professions Act 56 of 1974, replacing the South African Medical and Dental Council (SAMDC), which had operated since 1928. The prosecution of Wouter Basson is undoubtedly its most political case.
The SAZF lodged its complaint soon after Dr Mofokeng’s January 2025 statement about Netanyahu. In April 2025, she was informed in Washington that a formal complaint had been lodged against her.
On September 11, 2025, the HPCSA’s First Medical and Dental Committee of Preliminary Inquiry met to consider the SAZF’s submission. It found evidence of unprofessional conduct under regulation 4(9). Less than a month later, on October 16, 2025, the HPCSA issued its ruling letter, fining her R10 000 for bringing the medical profession into disrepute.
Dr Mofokeng, represented by the public-interest law centre SECTION27, strongly rejected the ruling, maintaining that her personal political commentary did not compromise her clinical integrity. She subsequently approached the High Court to review and set aside the HPCSA’s decision.
Her position was consistent: as a UN Special Rapporteur, Dr Mofokeng is entitled to privileges and immunities that allow her to perform her functions independently and without intimidation. Article VI, section 22, of the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations protects UN experts from legal or administrative interference arising from acts performed in their official capacity. Any action by a global or domestic institution that seeks to penalise her for official opinions or statements constitutes a breach of international law.
Many others saw the HPCSA’s intervention as politically motivated and a dangerous precedent for professional regulation in South Africa. They argued that its statutory mandate under the Health Professions Act 56 of 1974 is to protect the public and guide the medical professions on ethical practice and patient care. It is not an instrument for policing political expression or punishing doctors for exercising their constitutional rights to freedom of conscience, belief and expression.
Significance of the ruling
The biggest loser is the SAZF. To appreciate how far it has fallen, we must return to its celebratory press release of October 2025. It said that, given Dr T’s employment at the UN, “this ruling carries particular significance” because the “UN Code of Conduct requires Special Rapporteurs to maintain restraint, integrity, and impartiality in their public communications, standards she blatantly ignored”.
The SAZF further claimed that Dr Mofokeng’s “public conduct also reflects a broader pattern of bias and hostility among certain UN officials” towards Israel. Citing South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, it said “serious concerns have been raised about the impartiality of UN-sourced reports”. It alleged that she, “like other individuals entrusted with global human-rights mandates, is abusing [her position] to advance partisan, defamatory, or discriminatory agendas”.
Those who must eat humble pie
Sunday World must also eat humble pie for publishing a plainly one-sided report about Dr T. The Press Council rejected my complaint on the technical ground that I had not obtained a mandate from her. But I did not want a mandate to express solidarity. The newspaper subsequently declined to publish our article because I had lost the case. In dismissing the complaint for lack of standing, Press Ombud Franz Krüger noted: “It is also clear that her rights have potentially been infringed.”
Thirdly, I believe this matter was won not in court but in Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Health, particularly at its March 26, 2026, hearing. EFF MP Naledi Chirwa-Mpungose, supported by Kgotsi Letlape and, at times, the health ministers, challenged the HPCSA over its handling of the case. The six-hour hearing was heated and amounted to a sustained grilling of the council. As I listened to the proceedings live, it became clear to me that the HPCSA was going to lose this case.
Finally, the matter was won in the court of public opinion. Like thousands of others, I never regarded swearing at Netanyahu as wrong. It was clear that the public did not support the SAZF’s complaint against Dr Mofokeng.
The Zionist Federation thought it could weaponise South Africa’s primary health-professions regulator in support of genocide denial, but the controversy has forced the institution to democratise. This is long overdue. Dr T and others must press for deeper reform, beginning with the council’s engagement with her final report, A Compendium on Medicide: A Sub-text to Reproductive Genocide – A Public Health Crisis.
This is our victory and a warning to those who seek to abuse institutions such as the HPCSA, which was established to regulate the conduct of doctors and healthcare workers. Those who do so will face the consequences.
It is also a victory for those who regard “FU Netanyahu” as a minimal expression of outrage against a genocide that has killed thousands and injured many more. A peer-reviewed study published in The Lancet Global Health estimates that 75 200 people died violently in Gaza between October 7, 2023, and January 5, 2025. Other reports indicate that an estimated 8 000 to more than 10 000 additional people are missing and presumed buried under the rubble.
The SAZF, the HPCSA and the sycophantic news media that repeated their claims must all eat humble pie.
