{"id":43243,"date":"2026-07-03T20:59:59","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T18:59:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/?p=43243"},"modified":"2026-07-05T21:01:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T19:01:36","slug":"born-and-bred-south-african-minister-chikunga-hits-back-at-fake-citizenship-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/born-and-bred-south-african-minister-chikunga-hits-back-at-fake-citizenship-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Born-and-bred South African\u2019: Minister Chikunga hits back at \u2018fake citizenship\u2019 claims"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Lukholo Mazibuko<\/p>\n<p>The Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, Lydia Sindisiwe Chikunga, has denounced what she calls a \u201cmalicious and orchestrated\u201d social media campaign falsely claiming she is not a South African citizen.<\/p>\n<p>In a strongly worded statement issued on Thursday, 2 July, her ministry says the online allegations are defamatory, politically motivated and aimed at undermining trust in democratic institutions rather than engaging in honest debate.<br \/>\n\u2018Born-and-bred South African\u2019<\/p>\n<p>The ministry stresses that Chikunga \u201cis, and has always been, a born-and-bred South African citizen\u201d and is married to a South African spouse.<\/p>\n<p>Read further: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.citizen.co.za\/news\/born-and-bred-south-african-minister-chikunga-hits-back-at-fake-citizenship-claims\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.citizen.co.za\/news\/born-and-bred-south-african-minister-chikunga-hits-back-at-fake-citizenship-claims\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Lukholo Mazibuko The Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, Lydia Sindisiwe Chikunga, has denounced what she calls a \u201cmalicious and orchestrated\u201d social media campaign falsely claiming she is not a South African citizen. In a strongly worded statement issued on Thursday, 2 July, her ministry says the online allegations [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","region-south-africa","type-news-articles","item-year-699","item-theme-nationality-of-politicians"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43243"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43244,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43243\/revisions\/43244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}