WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2008-02-05 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
By Ella Smook
Amid the outrage that followed the police crackdown on asylum-seekers sheltering in a Johannesburg church, an advocacy group has warned that “marginally friendlier and more efficient” Cape Town could become the destination of choice for refugees.
“After last week’s raid, Cape Town should brace itself for an influx of refugees who have not been able to get assistance from Home Affairs in Johannesburg,” said Braam Hanekom of Passop (People Against Suffering, Suppression, Oppression and Poverty).
On Friday Hanekom lashed out at the “shocking persecution” of immigrants who had sheltered at the Central Methodist Church in Braamfontein.
| ‘Can you imagine doing this to South African citizens? It is unthinkable’ |
The church, which has often featured on current affairs programme Special Assignment, is a haven to more than 1 000 Zimbabweans who have fled political conflict and economic turmoil in their homeland.
But police said they had received complaints about crime from residents and businesses in the area.
They subsequently launched the overnight raid as part of a “crime-combating exercise”.
Hanekom questioned the constitutionality of rounding up hundreds of people for unspecified charges.
“Can you imagine doing this to South African citizens? It is unthinkable,” Hanekom said.
He said “crime” was just an excuse to target asylum seekers and drive them from the country.
Hanekom said it seemed that whenever police arrested large numbers of foreigners, or when foreigners were able to get access to legal representation, charges were eventually dropped and the prisoners released from custody.
Three weeks ago, the charges against 27 refugees who were arrested for “trespassing” outside Home Affairs on the Foreshore, were dropped after the accused had spent two nights in prison.
In December, 12 foreigners narrowly escaped deportation under the state’s Operation Umbrella initiative when Passop, with the help of the Legal Resources Centre, managed to bring their case before the High Court at the eleventh hour. They were all released.
On Friday, police spokesman director Murray Michell confirmed that of the refugees arrested at the church, “some” had been released and “some” remained in jail.
But he did not have “exact numbers” of how many were arrested during the raid, or how many remained in custody at Johannesburg Central police station.
Michell could only say “hundreds” were arrested, and that the number of prisoners in custody “fluctuated”.
He said arrests were made on charges of “suspected” possession of stolen property and “for being in the country illegally”.
Civic and religious groups have reacted with shock and outrage and have publicly condemned the state’s actions against the mostly Zimbabwean refugees.
Anglican Bishop Peter Lee of the SA Council of Churches (SACC) described police conduct as comparable to “the worst excesses of the 1970s and 1980s”.
General secretary of the SACC, Eddie Makue, remarked that, in the apartheid era, “we often were able to hide people in churches, because we knew even the brutal apartheid police were reluctant to violate the sanctity of the church”.
The Treatment Action Campaign called the raid “vindictive, xenophobic, unnecessary and illegal”.
“The action and conduct of the SAPS is reminiscent of apartheid-era midnight raids, which have no place in South Africa today,” said the Joint Civil Society Monitoring Forum.