Iran Protests Highlight South Africa’s Broken Moral Compass

Now that Iran appears to have broken the back of anti-regime protests, South Africa finally broke its silence.

Weeks after the demonstrations began, with Iranian morgues overflowing and a death toll feared by some to be in the tens of thousands, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa less-than-boldly called for “restraint and dialogue.”

This timid and delayed response is another faceplant in the country’s freefall from its historic moral high ground.

South Africa emerged from the pall of apartheid as a shining example of the victory of freedom over despotism. Yet now, it aligns itself with regimes killing their own people in the streets, much like South Africa’s apartheid government did.

While Ramaphosa touted his country’s belief in the “right to peaceful protests, freedom of expression, and freedom of association,” he did not condemn the Islamic Republic for murdering Iranians. Instead, he registered his “concern” about the “loss of life.”

A day earlier, the Democratic Alliance (DA), the country’s second-largest political party, which sits in government with the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party, wrote to the country’s foreign minister, demanding that he report Iran to the UN Human Rights Council.

In its letter, the DA noted, “the Iranian uprisings echo South Africa’s own struggle for freedom,” including the 1960 Sharpeville massacre and the 1976 Soweto uprising. Images from the two iconic moments in the struggle against apartheid are etched in the minds of South Africans. The ANC betrays its own history by associating with Iran’s state violence.

Not only did Pretoria refuse to take a forceful stand against the Iranian regime’s “shoot to kill” orders targeting protesters, it also hosted an Iranian naval delegation from January 9-16. South Africa welcomed the “Will for Peace” joint naval exercise featuring warships from Iran, Russia, and China.

The DA condemned the government for seeking “closer military ties with rogue and sanctioned states such as Russia and Iran.” Details surrounding Iran’s participation are murky, with claims that the South African National Defense Forces did not comply with Ramaphosa’s belated directive to exclude Iran from the drills.

But even if Pretoria tried not to dirty itself with the blood of Iranian protesters, the ANC maintains cordial relations with Iran.

Just weeks after Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, the South African foreign minister — an ANC member — visited Iran, leading to speculation that Tehran played a role in South Africa’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) case falsely accusing Israel of genocide.

In March 2025, the ANC’s first deputy secretary-general hosted the Iranian ambassador to South Africa at the ANC’s headquarters, declaring, “We can’t hide our friends.”

One month into his second term, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order putting South Africa on notice, calling Pretoria’s close ties to Tehran a cause for concern. Beyond Iran, South Africa has cozied up to serial human rights violators Russia and China, positioning itself as a pillar of the anti-Western BRICS bloc. South Africa has never condemned China for its genocide of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang Province, and abstained on UN General Assembly resolutions in March and October 2022 condemning Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

The DA called the ANC “politically selective and hypocritical” for “turning a blind eye” to Russia’s violation of Ukrainian sovereignty while railing against the US capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro on January 3. “The ANC has adopted a two-faced approach to South Africa’s foreign policy to protect its own party interests over the interests of South Africa,” the DA wrote.

Clearly, Pretoria can speak out quickly when it wants to. On October 7, 2023, while Palestinian murder squads still roamed southern Israel, South Africa’s foreign ministry blamed Israel’s “illegal occupation of Palestine land” for provoking the atrocities without mentioning Hamas.

In its submission to the ICJ two months later, South Africa relied on regurgitated Hamas death statistics, which, in addition to being unreliable, do not differentiate between fighters and civilians, to accuse Israel of genocide. The complex urban warfare and Hamas’ widespread use of human shields did not prevent Pretoria from rushing into action.

Pretoria presents itself as a moral authority on the international stage, but its selective outrage and refusal to condemn the crimes of its despotic friends tell a different story.

David May is a research manager and senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). For more analysis from the author and FDD, please subscribe HERE. Follow David on X @DavidSamuelMay. Follow FDD on X @FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.