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Comment on Helen Zille's arrest |
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Wednesday, 10 October 2007 |
Apparently, Helen Zille and others gathered outside the house of an alleged drug dealer, and when the march organiser was arrested for allegedly violating a condition of the march, they then marched to the station. Zille and fifteen others were then arrested for ostensibly holding an illegal gathering. Based on the reported events, it would appear that the march that Helen Zille participated in could be considered a spontaneous gathering, as defined in the Regulation of Gatherings Act. Spontaneous gatherings are not automatically illegal, as the Act envisages situations where people may decide to gather to respond spontaneously to a particular event. In terms of s.13(2), 'it shall be a defence to a charge of convening a gathering in contravention of subsection (1)(a) that the gathering concerned took place spontaneously'. This provision recognises that, in some situations, an event may provoke anger to the point where it precipitates an immediate response. In this case, the marchers decided to express their displeasure at the arrest of one of their collegues immediately, and at the station where he was taken to. We sympathise with Zille's statement that the police's reaction was akin to that of the police under apartheid. Yet it is ironic that Zille arrives at this realisation only after her own arrest. Several weeks ago, in the buildup to the public sector strike, the FXI wrote to Zille to protest the virtual blanket banning of gatherings, including the Cape Town leg of the 'World Naked Bike Ride'. The FXI has also on numerous occasions protested against the illegal banning of gatherings and the excessive use of police force in gatherings. We hope that her arrest will make Zille more sensitive to violations of the right to protest taking place under her mayorship of Cape Town, and which she has failed to put an end to. No one has commented on this article. |
