A/HRC/36/16 9. Also in 2013, South Africa had passed the Prevention and Combating of Trafficking in Persons Act. The Act addressed trafficking in a comprehensive manner, when previously the issue had been dealt with in a fragmented manner. 10. With regard to the recommendations to criminalize hate speech and related hate crimes, in October 2016 the Cabinet had approved the publication of the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill for public comment. The Bill would establish the offences of hate crimes and hate speech. According to the Bill, a hate crime would have occurred when someone commits any recognized offence when motivated by unlawful bias, prejudice or intolerance based on race, gender, sex, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation or gender identity, religion, belief, culture, language, birth, HIV status, nationality, albinism, occupation or trade. In addition, the crime of hate speech had been included in the Bill more recently, in response to the increase in racist incidents that had taken place over the past few years. 11. The Bill had been the object of an intense participatory process and debate. Comments received indicated that there was extensive support for the inclusion of hate crimes in the law. However, concerns were raised that a definition of hate speech could restrict the right to free speech or the right to freely practice religion. The delegation of South Africa recalled, however, that the right to free speech must be balanced and was not unlimited. The Bill would shortly be returned to the Cabinet for discussion and be tabled in Parliament. 12. With regard to the right to privacy in the digital age, including communication surveillance, oversight, data protection and proposed legislation, oversight mechanisms to ensure that a person’s right to privacy was not unlawfully infringed already existed. In particular, the Information Regulator had been created by the new Protection of Personal Information Act. 13. New legislation to enhance cybersecurity needed to be developed, as extensive technological advances had led to a greater risk of cybercrime. There were a number of misconceptions regarding the new Cybercrime and Cybersecurity Bill. For example, additional structures to be established by the Bill would not give powers to the State Security Agency to control the Internet, nor any powers to censor or suppress what could be accessed, published or viewed on the Internet, nor to monitor communications without judicial sanction. Additionally, it was recalled that South Africa was a constitutional democracy; all legislative provisions were measured against the Constitution and, if found wanting, would be ruled unconstitutional. Details on existing civilian oversight of the security services by the Office of the Inspector-General of Intelligence were provided. 14. In reply to advance questions on the Life Esidimeni incident, the delegation stated that the Ministry of Health had requested the Health Ombudsman to investigate the tragic deaths of 96 mental health patients after they had been transferred into the care of nongovernmental organizations. The Ombudsman’s recommendations were being rigorously implemented to prevent similar incidents from recurring. 15. With regard to the issue of immigration, the delegation stated that the resurfacing of attacks on some categories of foreign nationals was in conflict with the country’s philosophy of humanity and the Constitution. The attacks had required interventions at the policy level, through community engagement and crime prevention. The Special Reference Group on Migration and Community Integration in Kwa-Zulu Natal, headed by the former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, had been set up. A key finding of the Group had been that attacks on foreign nationals were a direct result of increasing competition for scarce resources. It was therefore important to enhance cooperation on the continent in order to ensure regular and orderly migration. 16. The Government had developed a draft national action plan to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance in collaboration with various stakeholders, to provide a basis for the development of a comprehensive public policy against those scourges. The consultation process on the draft action plan had been completed in October 2016 and it was the Government’s aim to finalize the action plan by September 2017. 3