I can understand the embarrassment of a State President being booed by large numbers of a crown in front of foreign dignitaries.   I cannot understand why people are not more interested in investigating why the people are booing than who the people were booing.  The ANC has apparently promised a full investigation of this matter and they are going to get to the bottom of who was booing.  When you read something like that, as a lawyer, you just want to laugh.  

Unless they are going to come up with some nonsense, without any names, facts or figures, that the people booing were from an opposition party, what on earth do they hope to achieve?  What crime have the people booing committed?  Will they be charged for bad manners?  They seem to forget that there is such a thing called “freedom of speech” and while it has limits, such as hate speech, booing somebody is not going to constitute any criminal offence.  Apart from that, I wonder how they plan to prove who was booing – by reviewing video footage?  Does the fact that somebody’s mouth was open indicate that they must have been booing or could they have been doing something else?  The story is so ludicrous that I am surprised that they ran with it for about 2 days threatening the action and it is one of those where you almost dare the people to say please, go ahead and arrest 3,000 people for booing and see what happens next.  Unlike Putin’s Russia, we do actually have some rights and while quite honestly, if I was in the crowd, I would not have booed, despite my feelings towards the President, because I don’t think it was the right occasion for that, I cannot possibly imagine what they hope to achieve other than stopping booing at other events by making people believe that actually if you do boo the President, you could be prosecuted.  The people who really walk away with egg on their faces are those who stand up and announce to the press that action is going to be taken!  Oh please, who do you think you are fooling?