Concern over curb on protests

Extra R45m for security

LOBBY group Right2Know ( R2K) has raised concerns about the City of Cape Town’s plans to clamp down on service delivery protests, saying this would stifle people’s rights.

Councillor JP Smith, the City’s mayoral committee member for safety and social services, confirmed that the City this week approved an extra R45 million to increase security, although this was not solely directed at protests.

Smith said: “The new resources will help to make residents safer against criminal elements seeking to hijack protest actions for political and criminal reasons. The additional budget will also fund the employment of firefighters for the two new fire stations in Masiphumelele and Sir Lowry’s Pass.”

In recent weeks, Cape Town has seen an increase in protests over housing and services, some of which included looting and land grabs.

“The R45m was allocated to recruit additional staff for the safety and security directorate as part of the new budget that was adopted (on Wednesday),” said Smith.

“This was done in direct response to the public’s inputs and the comments about the levels of crime, violence and lack of road safety. An additional budget amount of R35m was added last year as well, which was used to deploy 100 additional enforcement staff to Delft.”

Busisiwe Zasekhaya, a project co-ordinator for the Right2Protest Project at R2K, said the City’s approach troubled their coalition of organisations which “aim to advance the constitutional right to protest. In a province plagued by service delivery and land reform protests, the local government could be using its resources to ensure that the police are adequately trained and are able to respond to protests within the confines of the constitution.

“We’ve seen that the use of force used by police when responding to protests is often not proportional to the threat posed by protesters.”

Smith said the City had carried out “frank engagement with the communities where conflict arises”.

“The City strongly supports the right to protest and freedom of speech,” said Smith.

“However, no expression of dissatisfaction or protest can ever be supported if it destroys or damages private property, disrupts the lives of communities, prevents education, blocks transport and emergency vehicles, interrupts public transport, loots businesses, puts the lives of people at risk and destroys the public amenities and facilities… When this happens, we must act in the public interest.”

Lieutenant-Colonel Andrè Traut, spokesperson for the Western Cape police, this week confirmed that his staff were working with City officials with a view to combating violent protests.

“It is common practice for police to join forces with other law-enforcement agencies to tackle a security threat in a holistic manner,” said Traut.

He said the SAPS was recruiting additional officers to “increase our operational contingent to ultimately enhance policing, for a number of reasons”.