When your police are free to abuse girls all the way up to abusing them to death for not wearing hats like Iran is, I'm pretty sure that's extremism.
It’s not like the SA government (as a whole) was ever particularly that keen about the extremism part. Fundamentally they are not that different from Iran in most ways. They started from very different positions of course (secularism never having been a thing in the Arabian peninsula). SA is at least kind of moving into the right direction in some areas when it comes to women’s rights (even if at an extremely slow pace).
> It’s theocratic authoritarianism
Probably closer to theocratic totalitarianism..
Not sure why you want to label what to me is a distinction without a difference. You care about the motivations of a few at the top, I care about the local police and their supporters, which are acting like religious extremists not authoritarians.
In comparison, Islamic extremists do things like kill infidels and seek to establish an Islamic caliphate.