Category Archives: Farnaaz Parker

Winter in Johannesburg: “The only thing anyone ever does is chase us”

http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-08-08-johannesburgs-cold-and-desperate

Johannesburg’s cold and desperate

by Greg Nicholson

Some Gauteng residents delighted on Tuesday when snow began to fall across Johannesburg, Pretoria and Vereeniging. They rushed to take pictures on their camera phones and joked on Twitter. For others, the cold ushered fear, sickness and the chance of dying from exposure. GREG NICOLSON spoke to those unable to stay warm.

The homeless

Brothers Zonibonile, 24, and Siyabonga Mdiya, 28, remember enjoying the snow. They grew up in Queenstown, Eastern Cape, and said they’ve seen it many times. When they were kids it was fun to watch the flakes fall. “At least you’re safe in your home, in your blanket,” said Zonibonile, a piece of wire tied around his waist to close his jacket.  Continue reading →

M&G: No charges, but cops still want to throw the book at Kota

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http://mg.co.za/article/2012-02-29-no-charges-but-cops-still-want-to-throw-the-book-at-kota/

No charges, but cops still want to throw the book at Kota

by Farnaaz Parker

Charges of theft against prominent Grahamstown activist Ayanda Kota have been dropped but police say they will still pursue additional charges against him.

Kota was charged with theft in January after he failed to return some books he had borrowed from a former associate with whom he had had a falling out.

Eyewitnesses say that when Kota presented himself at the police station in Grahamstown to respond to the book theft allegations, police assaulted him. He was later charged with resisting arrest and assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.

Police spokesperson Mali Govender told the Mail & Guardian on Wednesday although the charges of theft had been withdrawn, police would still pursue charges of resisting arrest and assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm against him.

But Kota said his understanding was that all the charges had been dropped and questioned the police’s motives in pursuing charges against him.

“They should be dealing with a number of serious issues — crime, theft, hijacking, cash-in-transit heists [yet] there is a determination on their part to pursue these charges against me. That speaks volumes,” he said.

Ongoing animosity
Earlier this year, Grahamstown activists familiar with the situation said officials had seized on a personal disagreement between Kota and Rhodes lecturer Claudia Martinez-Mullens to charge Kota with a crime.

Kota has been a thorn in the side of local government and this is not the first time he has had a run-in with the law. On one occasion he led township residents in a protest of the bucket system and emptied nightsoil in the municipality’s foyer. He was also arrested after arriving at the scene of a protest over access to drinking water in the Phaphamani squatter camp.

On Wednesday the Unemployed People’s Movement (UPM), which Kota chairs, went forward with a planned protest against “intimidation and repression of grassroots activists and movements”.

About a hundred people gathered in Grahamstown’s Cathedral Square on Wednesday to speak out against police intimidation and brutality and to highlight service delivery problems in the region.

The UPM said that state officials across the country were repressing independent political mobilisation.

The organisation said that although it might require organisation and struggle for poor people to access the media and the courts it is still possible. Accessing government however is impossible.

“People that start off trying to talk to the government end up getting shot at with rubber bullets and arrested,” it said. “Very little is said about the on-going day-to-day intimidation and repression of grassroots activists and movements.”

Repressing activism

Ben Fogel, a Grahamstown activist and member of Students for Social Justice, said this sort of targeting of social activists by public officials is common across the country.

He said the recent detention of protestors who had occupied the Rondebosch Common in Cape Town in January showed a similar desire by public officials to dampen the impact of social activists.

In that incident police, who were accused of using excessive force to disperse the gathering, sprayed protestors with water cannons loaded with blue dye.

“Out of the 42 charges that were laid [that day], 41 were dropped. They arrested people on Friday and the charges were dropped on Monday,” he said.

“Clearly political parties realise the ability of social movements to garner social support,” he said.

M&G: Jo’burg sends in Red Ants in defiance of ConCourt

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http://mg.co.za/article/2012-01-18-joburg-sends-in-red-ants-defiance-of-concourt

Jo’burg sends in Red Ants in defiance of ConCourt

Farnaaz Parker

Illegal occupiers of private properties are still being evicted without the promise of alternative accommodation despite a landmark Constitutional Court decision that holds municipalities responsible for ensuring they are not left on the streets.

In December last year, the Constitutional Court ruled that when the unlawful occupiers of a private property are evicted, the city is obliged to provide temporary emergency accommodation.

Despite the ruling made in the so-called Blue Moonlight case, residents of a the “New Doornfontein” Chambers building in Van Bleek Street, Johannesburg, on Wednesday found themselves out on the street with no prospect of alternative accommodation.

About 100 people were left standing in the street, holding onto the few belongings they’d managed to grab during an eviction allegedly carried out by the Red Ants.

Osmond Mngomezulu, a lawyer for the Socio-Economic Rights Institute, said that as a result of the Blue Moonlight case, there is an obligation on the city to provide alternative accommodation to those evicted. “It applies to the poorest of the poor, those who would become homeless if evicted,” he said.

That seems to be the case with many of the people evicted from the building on Wednesday yet it is unclear why the city did not come forward to help the residents.

Tentative agreement

Renney Plit, chief operating officer of Afhco, the company which owned the building — referred to as both Platinum Mile and “New Doornfontein” Chambers — said the eviction came after a six-year legal battle.

Court documents show that the eviction was approved by the high court in August last year. There was a tentative agreement with residents that they would leave by December, he said, and some of the blind residents, who were living in the building, were helped with finding alternative accommodation. But others refused to move and, according to Plit, notices were posted informing residents of the impending eviction, which was carried out on Wednesday morning on the orders of the sheriff of the court.

Some of the people evicted told the Mail & Guardian they knew the eviction was pending, while others claim they were never informed about it.

Oteka Khuzwayo, one of the people evicted from the building, said he heard about the eviction by happenstance. “Around 4 o’clock I heard someone say they saw Red Ants coming into the flat [then] around six o’clock they just kicked in our door and entered. We didn’t even get a chance to take our property. I just took the clothes I am wearing, my son and my wife. My other things, I left inside,” he said.

Khuzwayo said he had been living in the building for over 10 years. In addition to his possessions, he also lost his money and his identity documents, a complaint echoed by others who had been evicted.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which has done work providing healthcare to residents in many of the city’s hijacked buildings, was on the scene following the eviction. The organisation said it would provide medical assistance to those who needed it and distribute blankets to the residents, many of whom spent the night on the street.

‘Inhumane’

Jens Pederson, project coordinator for MSF in Johannesburg, said putting vulnerable people on the street was inhumane. Among the displaced were children and people with chronic conditions such as TB, asthma and hypertension.

“We are concerned when people are abruptly evicted without the opportunity to remove their belongings, which includes medications,” he said. “There are people with chronic conditions who have now lost their medication.”

Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon, a researcher with the African Centre for Migration and Society, who has done research into the many hijacked buildings in the city centre, said it’s likely that many of the people evicted on Wednesday would simply move into other illegal buildings. “The cycle will just continue,” he said.

“The reason people are staying in buildings like this is because they can’t afford formal accommodation. Many of them would move into formal accommodation if it was affordable,” he said.

Wilhelm-Solomon said there’s a chronic lack of affordable accommodation in the inner city for the “lowest rung” of people in the city, those working in the informal economy or begging.

“Even in affordable housing, the basic minimum you could [pay for] a very simple room in a warehouse in this area is around R1 000 and that’s more than many families can afford,” he said.

“There really needs to be affordable, formal accommodation at a lower cost which may take government subsidies. These are complex issues that take a long time [to solve].”

The City of Johannesburg could not be reached for comment by the time this story was published.