The party of South Africa's ex-president Jacob Zuma on Monday filed a treason complaint against AfriForum, a group championing the white Afrikaner minority, after Donald Trump attacked the country's new law aimed at redistributing white-owned land.
AfriForum has lobbied against the law in US media and political circles, portraying it as part of a wider onslaught against Afrikaners, and Zuma's MK party accused it in a criminal complaint of spreading misinformation to influence Trump.
The US president last week signed an executive order cutting financial assistance to South Africa, citing the land expropriation act and Pretoria's genocide case against Israel, Washington's close ally, at the International Court of Justice.
The Trump administration said Afrikaners, the descendants of predominantly Dutch 17th century settlers, could come to the United States as refugees, lending credence to AfriForum's complaint that they are being persecuted, which is disputed by the South African government and most political parties.
The government has defended the land reform law as an attempt to rectify the injustices of the past and has pushed back against what it says is misinformation, pointing out that no expropriations have yet taken place under the law.