URGENT TO ALL MEDIA - RIGHT TO ASSEBLU VIOLATED IN MOUNT MORIAH : IMC-SA

URGENT – TO ALL MEDIA:
The right to assembly violated in Mount Moriah

Durban Thursday 1 April 2004, 14 people from the community of Mount Moriah were arrested while peacefully assembling for a march to demand a solution to the substandard housing they are facing, as well as a scrapping of the unpayable rate debts that the eThekwini Municipality is summoning them to pay. They are now being held in Phoenix Police station and are to appear in Verulam court Friday April 2 at 9.00 am.

Background
The 400-household community of Mount Moriah has long been struggling to address the disastrous conditions prevailing in their area. The source of crises emanates from the poor work done by the “developers” Moreland and Marine Roberts, since the beginning the houses have been cracking, leaking, with huge damage to furniture and hygiene for the residents.
-When my neighbour uses her bathroom, the water flood our kitchen, one woman explains.
The ground water has been contaminated, for example causing the scrubs and wounds of the community children to stay unhealed. The houses are also built proximal to electrical pylons, which might be connected to the health disorders the residents are suffering from. For example, the rate of miscarriages is abnormally high. In Thursday’s march the community demanded compensatiopn for the poor quality of housing, reparation and lowering of the housing prices to 45 % of the market value (as they had agreed with the developers on Dec 2 year 2000), investigations of the causes for the pollution and the health disorders and measures taken to address the problems.
While the Tongaat-Hulett group to which the “developer” Moreland belongs made revenues of R6,6 billion last year, many of the residents of Mount Moriah are facing demands from the municipality to pay rates debts of around R10 000. This is an impossibility for the low-paid workers and unemployed of Moriah.

Marching to demand decent housing and scrapping of rate debts
The march was targeted at the developers as well as the municipality, and started early in the morning by marching towards the house of the ward councilor, Ganesh of Democratic Alliance, with the demands
- - that the rate debts of Mount Moriah be scrapped, for municipal housing as well as for private-owned.
- - the current rate is replaced with a flat rate of R20 a month. Other communities within the eThekwini Municipality have got their debts rebated.
Furthermore the community is demanding that the Municipality ensures a polling station is put in place in Mount Moriah for the April elections and beyond, since they now feeling their right to vote infringed since many cannot afford the transport money to go to Avoca Hills where the station for registration and vote is now.
Along the way the protestors were stopped by Metro Police, who asked them to instead send only one person to get the councillor. Ganesh came to address the march and after some debate he promised to within one hour organise buses to carry the protestors to Metro Housing at the Martin West building in central Durban. However, the community of Mount Moriah was hindered from performing their right to demonstrate by brutal police intervention.

Unprovoked police brutality
While the march was waiting for the buses, the manager of the garage at Mount Moriah contacted the SAPS, who arrived at the scene and claimed that the permit the community had obtained for the march was “not in full”. The protestors were given five minutes to disperse as the peaceful march was said to block the garage-owner’s “economic activities”. On arriving the police brutally hit and injured three people with their cars. Two had to be taken to Gandhi Memorial Hospital. In response to this attack, the protestors defended their constitutional right to demonstrate and remained. The police then arrested and brought to the Phoenix Police station 14 of them, using a lot of unnecessary violence.
- They treat us like animals, one of the detainees told later in the evening.
As an example of the lawlessness of the police action, a police officer stole the cell phone of one of the detainees. Among the fourteen, there are two couples, whose children were left with no assistance other than what the comrades of the detained could manage to organise late in the afternoon/evening.

The detained are being charged with for an “illegal gathering” and “blocking the traffic”, and will appear in Verulam court at 9.00 am Friday 2 April.
The community of Mount Moriah is at time of writing trying to organise transports to take them there to support their sisters, brothers, mothers and fathers.

- The community got a permit for the march and we had the full right to exercise our democratic right to protest, says Russia Xulu, spokesperson for the Community Organisation of Mount Moriah.

- We strongly condemn the action taken by the SAPS and the charges. They are completely arbitrarily interfering with the constitutional rights of association and assembly. The police is abusing the legal procedures - that the community of Mount Moriah has complied with, says Thulani Simelane from the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM), who assisted in organizing the march.

- It’s striking the police is not there to defend the constitutional rights of the community, or to protect it from crime for that matter, but it’s willing to act on behalf of the local business interests.
- It is the police who has stood for the lawlessness and rioting.
- The suppression of this peaceful and legal march is part of trend – along the same lines as the denial of permission and the violent suppression of the APF-march on Human Rights day, says Solomzi Sijora, active in the DSM and also an APF-activist.

The community representatives who spent most of Thursday at the police station to keep an eye on their detained comrades were told they would appear in Phoenix court. Either that was a deliberate lie or the venue was changed late at night. It is now in the distant Verulam court. The community is still trying to organize to come there, and call on all media to be there and watch over the proceedings.

Contact persons:
Russia Xulu, Community Organisation of Mount Moriah: 083-6896752
Thulani Simelane, Democratic Socialist Movement
Pearl Zakwe, Democratic Socialist Movement
Solomzi Sijora, Democratic Socialist Movement
Heinrich Bumke, lawyer: 082-820600
Richard Pithouse, Centre for Civil Society: 083-9729009