SOUTH African ambassador to the United States (US) Ebrahim Rasool returned to Cape Town amid cheering crowds. He was declared persona non grata and expelled after criticising US president Donald Trump.
Rasool returned to a warm welcome in his home country on Sunday after being expelled from the US and declared persona non grata by Trump’s administration. He was received at Cape Town International Airport by hundreds of supporters who sang songs for him.
“A declaration of persona non grata is meant to humiliate you. But when you return to crowds like this, and with warmth … like this, then I will wear my persona non grata as a badge of dignity. It was not our choice to come home, but we come home with no regrets,” he told the crowds and reporters, in his first comments since being expelled.
He had been given until Friday to leave the US.
CAUSE FOR EXPULSION
US secretary of state Marco Rubio said last week Rasool was expelled after he described Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ movement as part of “a supremacist instinct” in the US. He was speaking at a webinar organised by a South African think tank.
Rasool also spoke about Trump’s crackdown on diversity and equity programmes and immigration policies.
Last month, the US cut funding to South Africa after accusing the government of supporting Hamas and Iran.
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