The City of Cape Town says it will not allow the slaughter of any animal at its Clifton Beach during the sunset protest on Friday evening.
This follows a declaration by the Black People’s National Crisis Committee that a cow will be slaughtered during their protest in order to cleanse the beach of what they call racist spirits.
The demonstration is in response to the removal of beach-goers from the area over the weekend, allegedly by private security company, Professional Protective Alternatives (PPA).
PPA has denied the accusation and says it was the City’s law enforcement officials who actually closed the beach.
“We’ll have additional traffic officers on duty to make sure we don’t have any unnecessary traffic congestion, and we’ll have our normal law enforcement staff on duty. The SAPS is bringing some extra staff in just to make sure that the event goes off peacefully, and there’s no unnecessary aggravation or irritation caused to anybody. Our by-laws don’t allow any slaughtering of animals on the beach, so we will have staff on duty that will prevent this from happening. They can protest on the beach peacefully. We will have staff at the entrances to make sure that no animals are brought onto the beach to be slaughtered,” says Richard Bosman, Executive Director for Safety and Security in the City of Cape Town.
Meanwhile, The Minister of Police, Bheki Cele, says the security at public areas is the mandate of the South African Police Service (SAPS) alone, and security companies have no right to assume authority in those areas.
“The policing in the Republic of South Africa is mandated to the South African police by the Constitution of the country. Nobody can take that responsibility. Security companies can’t say and have a word in the public space like the beach. The Deputy Minister of Police will be going, we want to find who employed them, who instructed them and who gave them that order to go and do that nonsense. That is nothing but nonsense that will have to be curbed,” says Cele.
The Deputy Minister of Police, Bongani Mkongi, will visit the area on Friday afternoon.
Watch a related video below:
See related tweets below:
The Black People’s National Crisis Committee has organised a sunset protest at #Clifton‘s Fourth Beach for this evening. Spokesperson for the group Ncedisa Mpemnyama, says they plan to slaughter a cow to cleanse the beach of racist spirits. #sabcnews #OccupyClifton
— SAfm news (@SAfmnews) December 28, 2018
We need to flood #CliftonBeach like this… When are we going. I’m ready!!!!!#OccupyClifton pic.twitter.com/9ZM7vyaOHo
— ***Rock’n’Roller *** (@techottness) December 27, 2018
People in Cape Town please do not let us down. #occupyclifton with taxis#CliftonBeach
— Tumelo Mapaa (@DjNewSouthAfric) December 27, 2018