Tuesday, 18 March 2014
Unemployed Peoples’ Movement Press Statement
Makana Municipality Bans another March
Municipalities around the country are banning marches and supressing the right to protest. The Makana Municipality in Grahamstown is one of the worst offenders.
The year before last they illegally banned one of our marches on the grounds that one of our comrades was on a list provided by intelligence of people who are not allowed to address public gatherings unless the riot police are present. We had to go to court to march and when we did march riot police came from all over the Eastern Cape to monitor our comrade.
Last year they illegally banned one of our marches on the spurious grounds that ‘they were dealing with the issues we were raising’. It is obvious that a Municipality can’t decide whether or not they are dealing with the issues that people want to raise in a protest. It is the people that should decide this.