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SOUTH AFRICA: End the harassment of anti-WSSD activists!28 August 2002
JOHANNESBURG — On August 17, about 100 members of the Soldiers Forum
(SF), an affiliate of the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF), were arrested
and thrown into jail, where they still remain, for no other reason than
the fact that they wanted to travel to Cape Town for a protest at parliament.
This is but the latest example of a growing trend by the South African government to deny freedom of expression and protest. This trend has increased markedly in recent weeks, with activists organising protests against the pro-corporate agenda of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) facing harassment and intimidation by intelligence operatives and government security forces. The SF, all former members of the apartheid regime's army and the ANC's uMkhontho weSizwe (MK), were arrested at Park Station in Johannesburg as they sat in a designated train coach waiting to embark for Cape Town, where they intended to call attention to their unfair dismissals and the failure of the government to provide pension payments. Police prevented the train from leaving and arrested all the SF members on trumped-up charges of not paying fares. The arrested SF members have since been languishing in Johannesburg Central Prison (otherwise known as John Vorster Square) where they have been threatened with violence if they refuse to co-operate with an obviously illegitimate process intended to criminalise their legitimate actions. The completely unwarranted arrest and imprisonment of members of the SF have taken place within the context of the continued attempt by the government to criminalise the anti-privatisation protest of the Kensington 87 at the house of Johannesburg mayor Amos Masondo in April this year, as well as the heavy-handed actions of the government against striking SAMWU workers. Furthermore, over the last several days, the National Intelligence Agency has attempted to question several anti-WSSD activists and, in one case, to recruit an APF member to spy for the agency. The APF will not bow to this increased political repression, nor will it accept the arbitrary and hypocritical restrictions on the exercise of basic freedoms. The APF calls on all those, both here and internationally, who support the legitimate, democratic struggles of ordinary South Africans to speak up and let your voices be heard. [Statement issued by the APF on August 17.] From Green Left Weekly, August 28, 2002.
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From: International News |
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