President Cyril Ramaphosa says South Africa is a sovereign country that cannot be instructed by anyone to arrest people.
During a media session at the White House last week, United States President Donald Trump wondered why South Africa had not arrested Economic Freedom Fighters EFF leader Julius Malema.
This was in relation to Malema chanting the controversial Kill the Boer, kill the farmer song. If someone got up in Parliament and started saying, Kill a certain group, he would be arrested very quickly, Trump claimed.
Ramaphosa on Trump call for Malemas arrestSpeaking to reporters in Cape Town on Tuesday 27 May, Ramaphosa said the issue of arresting anyone is a sovereign issue.
Its not a matter where we need to be instructed by anyone, that go and arrest this one. We are a very proud sovereign country that has its own laws and processes, he added.
We take into account what the Constitutional Court also decided when it said the slogan kill the Boer, kill the farmer is a liberation chant and slogan. Its not meant to be a message that elicits or calls upon anyone to go and be killed.
That is what our courts decided. So, they would probably want to arrest people willy nilly. We follow the dictates of our constitution because we are a constitutional state, and we are a country where freedom of expression is at the bedrock of our constitutional arrangement.
In March, the Constitutional Court refused to hear an appeal by civil society group AfriForum against an Equality Court ruling that the chant does not constitute hate speech.
Malema led the chant at a by-election rally in the Free State over the weekend and vowed to continue chanting it.
"I will not be silenced. The courts have said there's nothing wrong with the song. This is not my song. I did not compose the song, he said.