Joburg set for epic anti-xenophobic protests
Migrant communities, civil society organisations and concerned South African citizens will converge at his Braamfontein office to voice their displeasure.
In a statement to CAJ News Africa on Friday, ADF said the demonstrations would be epic.
Buoyed the “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” Human Rights Prize awarded it in Paris, France, ADF will hand over a memorandum to the mayor.
The memorandum has ten demands, among them that Mashaba stops stereotyping foreign nationals as criminals and fix decaying / dilapidated buildings that are havens of criminals.
ADF wants government to control porous borders and provide foreign nationals with the necessary permits, visas and documents as well as promote unity.
Mashaba’s labeling of foreigners as behind crimes in Johannesburg received a tongue lashing not only from foreign migrants, but from local quarters, including Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba, who described the mayor’s utterances as “unfortunate.”
“All of us have the responsibility to act in a manner that does not incite any hatred towards other fellow human beings irrespective of where they come from. I will seek a meeting with the Mayor precisely to brief him on a number of interventions that government has implemented in this regard,” said Gigaba.
Mashaba’s alleged sentiments were denounced as a recipe for xenophobic violence.
In 2008 some 62 foreign nationals were killed and over 200 000 others displaced around the country.
In 2015, a similar outbreak of violence left a number of foreign nationals dead, while hordes were injured with their property worth millions of Rands looted following alleged xenophobic rhetoric by controversial Zulu King, Goodwill Zwelithini.
ADF was created in immediate reaction to the xenophobic attacks in 2008.
Several community leaders and concerned residents in South Africa, called by Ivorian community leader Marc Gbaffou and Carnival organiser and pan African enthusiast Rayban Sengwayo, came together and decided to create a platform for African migrants to voice their concern and work for an integrated society.
– CAJ News
