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Press Alert:

Joe Slovo Task Team activists released on free bail

Wednesday 13 September 2007

11:30am

for comment please call the Joe Slovo Task Team – Mr Mapasa on 083 7371711 or Mzwanele Zulu on 076 3852369

JOE SLOVO, CAPE TOWN – Two activists who were swooped on by police on Tuesday night (Mzwanele Zulu and Mncedi Diko) and held in jail since then, were released on free bail this morning.

A crowd of Joe Slovo informal settlement protested outside the Bishop Lavis Magistrates Court until the two were released. The entire Joe Slovo community is now conducting a march of celebration through Langa.

Two nights ago, Zulu and Diko went to the police station to inform police that the community wanted to have a general meeting inside the settlement to discuss the way forward. The police agreed not to harass or attack or shoot at the general meeting in any way. However, just minutes later as they were walking home, police swooped and arrested them. They had not committed any crime and hence the arrests were unlawful. In fact, Zulu was the media spokesperson and negotiator with the police the day before and hence it is clear he was targeted for being an activist.

The Joe Slovo community has vowed not to be forcibly removed to Delft, where they firmly believe they will die a slow death, away from affordable public transport, job opportunities, schools and clinics and far from the city.

The Minister of Housing, Lindiwe Sisulu, is now clamping down on this established community of 6000 people with an iron fist, calling them “squatters” as if they just arrived in Cape Town yesterday. Most of the community have been living in Joe Slovo for up to 20 years and they are demanding that they get RDP houses on the land where they are living.

They have every right to make this demand, having been on the housing waiting list for a decade or more.

The community also demands that the police who are occupying the area 24 hours per day, leave immediately. This is no longer apartheid where troops were in the townships day and night. People are scared to leave their homes for fear of arrest.

[ends]

for comment please call the Joe Slovo Task Team – Mr Mapasa on 083 7371711 or Mzwanele Zulu on 076 3852369