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Press Statement
The movement in the early hours of Thursday, 19 November, demanded to meet with the Mayor of the City of Cape Town (Dan Plato). Instead, the Mayor collaborated with the metro police and South African Police Services (SAPS) to brutalise and arrest members of the Movement. Even worse is that those same law enforcement entities applied their force on people who were protesting peacefully. Mr Ngidi who is in a wheel chair was one such victim of the police, who abused him. The police arrested around 31 members of the Movement.
Our Movement holds that the City of Cape Town must take full responsibility for treating its black working class citizens as less than human; and for using old tactics of the racist apartheid state by applying oppressive measures against this same black working class. It has become clear to us that the City of Cape Town listens only to the rich. We condemn the brutality, and the Mayor’s response to our members with use of the police to ignore the demands of the Movement.
We are still demanding water, toilets, and electricity. And we call for the City to stop court interdicting our occupations. We want to meet with the Mayor of Cape Town about our demands that he has failed to answer.
On the 23rd of November 2020, our members appeared in the Cape Town Court. The City and the police have created false charges such as Public Violence and Illegal Gathering. Intlungu yaseMatyotyombeni regard these charges as targeted victimisation by the City of Cape Town, and an assault to the Movement. We have been supporting our 31 members who were arrested by the City of Cape Town on the 19th. We welcome all solidarity and support for our ongoing case.
We also invite the media to our action for service delivery.
For further information contact:
1. Mzu: 081 271 8802
2. Mabhelandile: 073 8941 119
3. Jolakazi: 060 461 2642
This statement was released by Intlungu yaseMatyotyombeni on 22 November 2020. You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
