AfriForum today directed a letter to Lt Gen Yolisa Matakata, Western Cape Police Commissioner, in which the organisation requests reasons for the unnecessary, excessive force used on members of the tourism industry. The organisation is shocked by the brutality used by the SAPS on these members who today participated in a peaceful demonstration in Cape Town. The SAPS sprayed protesters with a water cannon, while teargas grenades and stun grenades were also launched at them.
According to Clinton Lerm, a role-player in this industry in the Western Cape, the participants wore face masks and maintained a social distance of at least 1,5 m and protested peacefully. “The demonstration was part of a countrywide action initiated by role-players in the tourism industry to air their concerns regarding the dramatic effect which the draconic lockdown regulations have had on the industry.”
“AfriForum has in its possession various photos and video footage of the unnecessary, brutal conduct of the SAPS in Cape Town. Cape Town is currently under siege with violent political unrest that is breaking out all over the city during which the lives of innocent people are being threatened and residential properties are ransacked and burnt. Instead of urgently attending to these matters, the SAPS rather chooses to concentrate on innocent and peaceful people that are a soft target by means of using unnecessary and excessive violence on them,” says Thomas van Dalen, AfriForum’s Head of Community Safety for the southern region.
