SOUTH AFRICA: Protesters released on bail

The Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee (SECC) will continue to demand free water and electricity, which were promised by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) during its election campaigns, SECC chairperson Trevor Ngwane declared on April 16.

Ngwane was one of 50 people who were finally released by the Jeppe Regional Court in Johannesburg after being forced to spend eight days in one of South Africa's most violent prisons.

They were arrested on April 6, on the orders of ANC officials, following a protest outside the home of Johannesburg's ANC mayor, Amos Masondo. The activists were kept in jail, supposedly to allow police to check their addresses. The real reason was to intimidate the growing movement that is demanding access to basic services for the poor in post-apartheid South Africa.

Ngwane said the SECC will continue to organise marches, boycotts and will reconnect the poor people's water and electricity when it is cut off by the government.

Outside the court, scores of people waited patiently, with songs and dances, for the release of their colleagues. When Ngwane emerged, the crowd, dressed in red SECC T-shirts, shouted and chanted.

From Green Left Weekly, April 24, 2002.

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From GLW issue 489