Category Archives: press_release

Nqobile Nzuza, a 17 Year Old School Girl, Shot Dead with Live Ammunition by the Cato Manor SAPS

30 September 2013

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

Nqobile Nzuza, a 17 Year Old School Girl, Shot Dead with Live Ammunition by the Cato Manor SAPS

Nqobile Nzuza a 17 year old girl, a grade 9 learner at Bonella High School and an Abahlali baseMjondolo supporter was gunned down at around 5:00 a.m. this morning. Nqobile was shot twice from behind with live ammunition. Luleka Makhwenkwana was also shot in her arm with live ammunition and she is in King Edward Hospital. Thulisile Zide fainted and went unconscious, she is also in hospital. 

This is shoot to kill policing. This is the crackdown that the police and politicians promised on protests. This is policing that is willing to murder to suppress the struggle for real justice and real freedom. This is policing that is used to oppress the people in the interests of the ruling party and the tenderpreurs and gangsters that have seized control of it in Durban.

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Statement from The Children of South Africa

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Posted from NGOPulse

The Children of South Africa (CHOSA), an international non-governmental organisation based in the United States and South Africa, would like to express its deep concern regarding the situation in Kennedy Road.

CHOSA’s mission is to identify and support community based organizations (CBOs) that reach out and take care of orphans and other vulnerable children in South Africa.

One of the organisations we are currently working with and supporting is the Claire Estate Drop-In Centre (CEDIC) whose offices are in the Kennedy Road informal settlement in Durban, South Africa. As a community-based organisation, the Drop-In Centre is the only organisation in the area providing much needed and essential services to orphaned and other vulnerable children.

However, since Saturday 26 September 2009, the CEDIC has been forced to close after a mob of about 40 people from a nearby settlement attacked a local youth committee meeting. Firsthand accounts from the community indicate that the offices were ransacked on Monday 28 September by the mob which wielded guns, knives and spears. A number of community members have indicated that their homes have also been demolished by the mob and that some of their family members are still missing or arrested and that at least four residents have been found dead.

Just as worrying to us is the assertion from residents that the mob was supported and coordinated by the local branch of the African National Congress and are aimed at members of the Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) movement with much of the violence being perpetrated in full view of members of the Sydenham SAPS who have done nothing to stop it. These allegations are backed up by statements we have read from social workers, professors, church organisations and NGOs associated on different levels with members of the community.

The attacks on Kennedy Road are a significant violation of people rights including the rights of the children in the settlement. We are profoundly concerned with the lives of the children of Kennedy Road and we request that they be given a platform to voice their concerns. Since Saturday, over 100 children who are fed by the CEDIC have been going hungry and hundreds have not attended school. The significant number of child-headed households that the CEDIC assists have been left without much needed support.

The Children of South Africa therefore calls for an immediate secession of violence in the community, the re-opening of the Clare Estate Drop-in Centre and the safe return of all staff members. We call for Kennedy Road and the CEDIC to be run by the residents themselves where the community’s voice will be heard and where decisions are made democratically. We also call for an immediate transparent and independent investigation into the causes of the violence including the involvement of local political parties and the failure of the Sydenham Police to prevent the attacks in the settlement. Finally, CHOSA demands that all those involved in perpetrating attacks be arrested and prosecuted.

Sincerely,
Jared Sacks
Executive Director of the Children of South Africa
+27-79-512-5677
jsacks@chosa.org

APF: Xenophobic attitudes mar a march for housing in Alex

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ANTI PRIVATISATION FORUM

18 July 2008

Xenophobic attitudes mar an APF march for housing in Alex

A documentary produced by Filmmakers Against Racism on Alexandra and the lead-up to the recent xenophobic attacks there, had its first of more screenings last week in Johannesburg and is scheduled for broadcast on SABC. The Anti Privatisation Forum was given a preview copy of Affectionately known as Alex by the filmmakers so that the APF would be made aware that the documentary follows the march for housing by Alexandra Vukuzenzele Crisis Committee (AVCC) on April 19 this year. This part of the documentary features some APF members making statements against the Mozambiquan and Zimbabwean occupants of houses in Extension 7. Little more than a month later, the pogrom against immigrants burst xenophobia into the open, which may create the impression that the two events are linked.

What the documentary illustrates is how negative perceptions of immigrants have found expression in the legitimate grievances of poor communities. The memorandum of demands submitted to the Alexandra Renewal Project, its contractors and the local ward councillor on April the 19th, however, concerns corruption and the need for transparency in the allocation of housing. No demand for the removal of the occupants of the RDP houses or even mention is made of their nationalities in the memorandum. This unfortunate view emerges in speeches and two placards carried on the march. The perception that immigrants are awarded housing ahead of applicants on the housing waiting list has been fuelled by the frustration of people caught in the interminable wait in this queue and the corruption of housing developments. Regardless of such frustrations however, the APF unreservedly condemns the xenophobic attitudes that emerged in the march.

The APF and Alexandra Vukuzenzele issued a statement condemning the xenophobia immediately after the outbreak of violence in May. The statement is clear that anger against immigrants for taking jobs from South African nationals is misdirected, and that unemployment is a ‘structural problem of the capitalist system’. This strategic orientation informs the activities of organisations in the APF and it is the struggle against the rule of capital and the anti-poor policies that emanate from it, that will overcome the divisions xenophobia has raised within poor communities such as Alex. The APF has, over several years, been consistent in its condemnation of both the politics and policies that have incubated xenophobia and has, since the moment that the xenophobic pogroms erupted, been at the forefront of mobilising communities against xenophobia and providing support to victims.

To confront the scourge of xenophobia in our midst, the APF is calling public meetings on the issue and how it relates to our struggle for another world. How it manifested in an APF march for housing in Alex will be examined together with the AVCC. And together with the AVCC and organisations in the Coalition Against Xenophobia, the APF will be calling a people’s assembly in Alexandra to collectively discuss the origins of the violence and their effect on communities. Xenophobia’s tentacles run deep into the constructed immiseration of the poor and the struggle to eradicate it will be a long one.

For more information or comment, please contact APF Organiser, Silumko Radebe @ 011 333 8334 or on 072 173 7268

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Anti Privatisation Forum
123 Pritchard Street (cnr Mooi)
6th floor Vogas House, Johannesburg
Tel: (011) 333-8334 Fax: (011) 333-8335
Website: www.apf.org.za

Human Rights Organisations Welcome Constitutional Court Ruling

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

**COHRE and CLC Joint Media Statement**

HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANISATIONS WELCOME JUDGMENT IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

The Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) and the Cape Town-based Community Law Centre (CLC) at the University of the Western Cape welcomed the judgment that was handed down in the Constitutional Court today in the case of Various Occupiers v City of Johannesburg and others, in which COHRE and the CLC intervened as joint amici curiae.

The Constitutional Court overturned the Supreme Court of Appeal ruling, noting that the SCA “should not have granted the order of ejectment … in the absence of meaningful engagement.” As part of an Inner City Regeneration Strategy, the City of Johannesburg has attempted to evict residents of so-called “bad buildings” in terms of the National Building Regulations and Standards Act (NBRA). The City used this apartheid-era legislation to evict residents on grounds of health and safety concerns without consulting residents and without considering all relevant circumstances – such as the probability that residents would be made homeless.

Jean du Plessis, Deputy Director of COHRE, said: “Today’s judgment is a landmark victory for the more than 67,000 low-income residents of Johannesburg who risk overcrowded living conditions with poor sanitation and the constant threat of eviction, in order to be near livelihood opportunities. It affirms that public authorities must engage seriously and in good faith with the affected occupiers with a view to finding humane and pragmatic solutions. Such ‘respectful’, ‘face-to-face’ engagement gives effect to the constitutional value of human dignity, as well as the right of access to adequate housing enshrined in the Constitution.”

The Court further held that the City is obliged to consider the availability of suitable alternative accommodation or land in deciding whether to proceed with an eviction in terms of National Building Regulations and Standards Act. Du Plessis said, “COHRE hopes this will serve as an incentive to authorities to regard evictions as an absolute last resort, to be preceded by genuine efforts to restore buildings and render them safe for occupation in order to provide accommodation to people close to their place of work.”

The judgment also found that section 12(6) of the NBRA, which makes it a criminal offence for occupiers to remain in occupation after a local authority has issued a notice to vacate the premises, is in violation of section 26(3) of the Constitution. Section 26(3) declares that no one may be evicted from their home without an order of court made after considering all the relevant circumstances. The Court cured the constitutional defect in the legislation by reading in provisions providing for judicial oversight of such evictions.

Dr. Lilian Chenwi, Senior Researcher at the Community Law Centre, said: “Today’s judgment gives effect to South Africa’s constitutional commitment to respect and protect housing rights and is also in accordance with relevant international legal standards. In all evictions, local authorities must take the housing rights of people seriously and seek reasonable ways to avoid the devastation of homelessness by engaging meaningfully with the affected communities.”

“The judgment is another vivid illustration of the significance of the right to housing in the South African constitution to those living in precarious conditions,” Chenwi said.

The judgment also ordered the City of Johannesburg to pay the costs of the applicants in the High Court, the SCA and the CC.

The applicants, approximately 400 occupiers of buildings in Johannesburg’s Inner City, were represented by CALS/Wits Law Clinic and Webber Wentzel Bowens, with Paul Kennedy SC and Heidi Barnes as counsel. Advocates Geoff Budlender, Omphemetse Mooki and Richard Moultrie were instructed by the Legal Resources Centre on behalf of the amici curiae, the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) and the Community Law Centre (CLC) at the University of the Western Cape.

Issued by the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) and the Community Law Centre (CLC)

For further details, contact:

Jean du Plessis, COHRE Deputy Director, on cell +27.82.557.5563
Prof. Sandra Liebenberg, Member of the COHRE Board, on cell +27.82.202.3452
Dr. Lilian Chenwi, Senior Researcher at CLC, on cell +27.72.172.6346

Hundreds Face Eviction and Appeal in Cape Town Today

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Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign Press Release
18 Feb 2008
1pm

DELFT, CAPE TOWN – The appeal of hundreds of residents from Delft, who face eviction from the homes they occupied two months ago, is to be heard urgently at 2pm today (February 18th 2008). This decision was made at a meeting in chambers this morning.

Thubelisha Homes and the Provincial ANC government will oppose the peoples’ appeal against the eviction order.

The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign is against the court’s earlier final eviction order. The court didn’t even mention anything about alternative accommodation. They also refused to have an arbitration with the people of Delft to come up with a compromise.

The judge and ANC government and Thubelisha Homes are treating the residents of Delft as if they have alternative accommodation. Yet not one of them has any place to go. All of those who moved into the new houses were either homeless or backyard dwellers. Many had been on the waiting list for 20 years. Many of those who considered themselves “backyarders” in fact were living in appalling conditions in the back yards of homeowners, such as those families who attached a piece of tarpaulin to the backs of bakkies and slept every night for years in this so-called “tent”.

The AEC is currently carrying out a door to door survey of the socio-economic situation in Delft and the results will be released soon.

The AEC demands that housing be provided now for those who need it, instead of hundreds of pointless stadiums that costs billions of rands.

…/ends

For comment call AEC Legal Co-ordinator Ashraf Cassiem on 076 1861408