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23-Year Old Beheaded In Anti-Gay Hate Crime Murder In South Africa

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A 23-year old transgender and gay man was beheaded in his home town of Kuruman, South Africa Friday, in an anti-gay hate crime. Thapelo Makutle, who was crowned Miss Gay Kuruman, was murdered by two men who remain at large. Reports state that police, for reasons of language and training, are not classifying the murder as a hate crime, and do not understand the significance of the attack. On report states the police reject that Makutle was beheaded, but acknowledge his throat was slashed.

Mamba Online reports:

According to the group Legbo Northern Cape, Thapelo Makutle was attacked at his place of work in the John Taolo Gaetsewe district on Friday. The organisation said that there was an argument related to “his sexuality and homosexuality”.

His two attackers are believed to have followed him to the room where he lived and on Saturday cut his throat, decapitating him.

They left his body under a blanket as though he were sleeping.

Makutle, who identified as both gay and transgender, was a volunteer for Legbo Northern Cape. He recently participated in the Kimberley Out In Africa Gay and Lesbian Festival, was known as a beauty queen named Queen Bling and was recently crowned Miss Gay Kuruman.

“It’s so sad. I can’t describe the pain that we are feeling right now,” Shaine Griqua, director of Legbo Northern Cape, told Mambaonline. “We have lost a young, talented, gay man who was open about who he was. The last few days have been like a dark cloud.”

He said that no arrests have yet been made in connection with the murder. He expressed his frustration with the lack of support for LGBT people in the Northern Cape and noted that hate crimes are on the rise in the province.

“We recently had a lesbian stabbed three times in a bar because they said that she should be a woman and not a man. She chose not to press charges because she didn’t want her family involved,” Griqua said.

“The government is not interested in this problem,” he added.

A later report form Mamba Online states:

According to the Mothibistad police, Thapelo Makutle’s body was found lying on the floor of his rented room. It is alleged that the victim has been out with his friends that night. He left unannounced and his friends assumed that he had gone home to sleep.

Shaine Griqua, Director of Legbo Northern Cape, who first reported the attack, said that confusion around the state of the body likely stems from miscommunication due to most people in the area not speaking English as a first language.

Griqua believes that the attack was a hate crime and said that he has information that Makutle was killed as a result of an argument about his sexuality and gender appearance, but police have yet to confirm this, saying that the motive is as yet unknown.

He told Mambaonline that the police in the area are ill-equipped to deal appropriately with a hate crime.

“These people [the police] are not reliable. They don’t even know what a hate crime is. If you ask them if it was related to his sexuality they will say ‘no’ because they don’t understand the context,” Griqua insisted.

Global Post adds:

In a statement, Cosatu’s Northern Cape secretary Anele Gxoyiya condemned “this brutal attack on a young, brilliant and educated soul whose head was chopped off in a hate crime.”

While South Africa is one of the few countries in the world to extend equal rights to homosexuals, and the only nation in Africa to allow same-sex marriage, the reality of life in townships and rural areas for gays and lesbians has been one of often brutal violence.

In a high-profile incident last year, Noxolo Nogwaza, a lesbian activist based in KwaThema township near Johannesburg, was gang-raped and then stabbed and stoned to death, in what the New York-based group Human Rights Watch described as part of an “epidemic” of hate crimes against gays and lesbians in South Africa.

Politics Web published a statement in response to the murder, by Lindiwe Mazibuko MP, Democratic Alliance Parliamentary Leader:

This violent and gruesome assault is yet another reminder that many of our country’s people are still denied the basic rights and freedoms which our Constitution enshrines.

There is a spate of homophobic hate crimes which have recently taken place across our country, including the repugnant and unconscionable crime of so-called “corrective rape” committed against lesbian South African women.

At this time, South Africa needs strong leadership from President Jacob Zuma, and an indication of his commitment to ensuring that all South Africans are able to live their lives free from fear of discrimination or violence.

Unfortunately, the silence from the Presidency has been deafening. This silence is made worse by the fact that President Zuma has in the past shown himself to be prejudiced towards homosexuals.

Last year, the DA welcomed the establishment of a government-led Joint Task Team on a “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) Intervention Strategy”, established in September 2011, under the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development.

Unfortunately, this task team has yet to make any report on its work.

Meanwhile, the spate of crimes continues.

President Zuma must speak out against this weekend’s horrific murder, and the many others like it, which are in danger of becoming all too commonplace in our country today.

I will today be calling for a debate in Parliament about the prevalence of these crimes in South Africa, and calling on MPs to discuss what can be done by the government to address this ongoing problem.

In addition, I will also be writing to the President to ask what immediate steps his government will be taking to address the violence and intimidation that homosexual South Africans must face on a daily basis.

Such crimes, and the President’s silence on them, cannot be allowed to continue.

Hat-tip: Towleroad

 

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White House Defends Trump’s Right to Share His ‘Opinions’ Iran Has US Missiles

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March 10, 2026

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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended what she claimed is President Donald Trump‘s right to share his opinion that Iran has U.S. Tomahawk missiles, a major weapon currently only in the possession of the United States, Australia, and the U.K.

On Monday, President Trump said Iran had U.S.-made Tomahawk missiles when asked if the United States would accept responsibility for the killing of at least 165 people at an Iranian girls’ school.

“Whether it’s Iran or somebody else … a Tomahawk is very generic,” Trump said, Newsweek reported. He also claimed that the missile is “sold and used by other countries” and that Iran “also has some Tomahawks.”

Newsweek noted that when pressed on why he appeared to be the only one making that claim, Trump said, “Because I just don’t know enough about it.”

He added that he was “willing to live with” the findings of any official investigation.

READ MORE: ‘Looking to Throw in the Towel?’: Trump Mocked as Administration Again Switches Priorities

“There has never been an indication that Iran has any Tomahawks,” CNN reported, “which are made by US defense manufacturer Raytheon for the US military, subject to strict export controls and not the ‘generic’ product Trump claimed Monday.”

On Tuesday, Leavitt chastised a reporter who asked about the president’s apparently erroneous claim.

“The president has a right to share his opinions with the American public,” she said, “but he has said he’ll accept the conclusion of that investigation, and, frankly, we’re not going to be harassed by the New York Times, who’s been putting out a lot of articles on this, making claims that have just not been verified by the Department of War to quickly wrap up this investigation, because the New York Times is calling on us to do so.”

The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor, mockingly responded, “Stop pointing out that the president has no idea what he’s talking about.”

READ MORE: ‘Trains My Hands for War’: Hegseth’s ‘Militant’ Bible Remarks Draw Backlash

 

Image via Reuters

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Democrats Warn Trump on Path to Put US Troops on the Ground

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17 hours ago

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March 10, 2026

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President Donald Trump‘s claim that his war against Iran may soon be coming to an end is being rejected by Senate Democrats, who warn that the administration may be on a path to putting boots on the ground in a “forever war.”

After attending a bipartisan briefing, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who sits on the Armed Services Committee, told reporters, “I emerged from this briefing as dissatisfied and angry, frankly, as I have from any past briefing in my 15 years in the Senate.”

“We seem to be on a path toward deploying American troops on the ground, in Iran,” he said, warning about “potentially huge consequences to American lives.”

U.S. Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV) also expressed grave doubts.

READ MORE: ‘Trains My Hands for War’: Hegseth’s ‘Militant’ Bible Remarks Draw Backlash

“What I heard is not just concerning, it is disturbing,” said Senator Rosen, who also serves on the Armed Services Committee, as CNBC reported. “I’m not sure what the endgame is or what their plans are.”

She said that if President Trump “does want to put us in a forever war — which it seems like he does — he needs to come out and let us be able to have that discussion.”

CNBC reported that the “concerns from Democrats who attended a bipartisan classified briefing with military brass on Tuesday stand in stark contrast with the president, who on Monday suggested the U.S. may be nearing the completion of its operation. Trump’s statements sent slumping markets soaring and cratered oil prices that had skyrocketed in recent days.”

Democrats are warning that there is no end in sight, CNBC noted, and reported that the “war dragging on could also see markets whip back and oil costs continue to soar, especially as the Strait of Hormuz, which carries roughly 20% of the world’s oil remains largely impassible.”

After the Senate briefing, CBS News reported that “U.S. intelligence assets have begun to see indications Iran is taking steps to deploy mines in Strait of Hormuz shipping lane.”

READ MORE: ‘Looking to Throw in the Towel?’: Trump Mocked as Administration Again Switches Priorities

 

 

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‘Trains My Hands for War’: Hegseth’s ‘Militant’ Bible Remarks Draw Backlash

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20 hours ago

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March 10, 2026

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Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth quoted the Bible — specifically the Old Testament — on Tuesday during remarks on the progress of the war against Iran, leaving some to express concerns about Christian nationalism and his potentially executing a holy or religious war.

Noting that he had just returned from Dover Air Force Base to accept the dignified transfer of another service member killed in the Iran war, Hegseth said, “I’ll close with Scripture, drawing strength from Psalm 144.”

“Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle,” he said. “He is my loving God and my fortress. My stronghold and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge. May the Lord grant unyielding strength and refuge to our warriors. Unbreakable protection to them in our homeland. And total victory over those who seek to harm them. Amen.”

Critics slammed his introduction of the religious text.

At The New Republic, Malcolm Ferguson wrote: “The Christian nationalist undertones of this war are getting even more obvious.”

READ MORE: ‘Looking to Throw in the Towel?’: Trump Mocked as Administration Again Switches Priorities

“Listening to Hegseth read Psalm 144 feels like an ominous justification for further aggression rather than a comforting message,” Ferguson said.

“While it’s a lovely verse traditionally attributed to King David, it does not accurately portray the reality of the situation whatsoever,” he wrote. “The United States is the Goliath of this story, along with Israel. The countries’ joint attacks of aggression have killed over 1,200 Iranians, many of them young schoolgirls. Iranian fuel depots were hit so hard that oil rained from the sky in Tehran on Sunday. Seven American service members have died because a president who promised peace sent them to war for money and regime change, not liberation.”

Professor of public policy Josh Cowen responded to Secretary Hegseth’s reading of scripture: “He could have chosen Jesus’s words ‘Blessed are they who mourn’ or if he was really craving a psalm, ‘The Lord is my shepherd.'”

“Instead he’s sporting militant quotes not to assuage grief but to justify his actions that caused it,” Cowen said.

Dutch journalist Michael van der Galien, according to a translation on X, called it “concerning that Pete Hegseth uses a passage from the Old Testament to suggest that God would bless a specific war between America, Israel, and Iran.”

“From a Catholic perspective, war is always a tragedy and only justified under strict conditions of just war theory, such as self-defense and the protection of innocents, not as a divine mandate.”

Professor Massimo Faggioli, a Church historian, according to a translation on X, wrote of Hegseth’s Scripture quoting, “they’ll do absolutely anything to make it look like a religious war.”

READ MORE: Cracks Widen as Trump Presses GOP on Hardline Voter ID Plan

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