/ 28 May 2010

Cops ban ‘education for all’ march

Is the government planning to suspend the Constitution and implement an undeclared state of emergency during the 2010 World Cup? This is the question being asked by civil society members outraged that Gauteng police this week banned a march planned for June 10 in support of education for all.

More than 30 local and international organisations united earlier this month to plan the march, which is intended to dovetail with the pledge by President Jacob Zuma and Fifa boss Sepp Blatter to use the football spectacular to promote education for all.

Ironically, police have cited the World Cup as the reason for the ban.

Zuma also announced early this year that he would convene an education summit among heads of state during the tournament. Deepening the irony of the police ban is that among the 30-plus organisations planning the June 10 march is 1Goal, the international movement — co-chaired by Blatter and run by the Global Campaign for Education (GCE) — that threw its weight behind Zuma’s summit announcement.

Cosatu, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, Idasa and the Public Participation in Education Network (PPEN) are among the organisations planning the march, intended to bring a local focus to the GCE’s global campaign centred on 72-million children worldwide who are out of school.

“Education remains deeply divided and unequal in South Africa,” the organisations intending to march announced earlier this month. “Through the march we are saying that a quality and equal public education should not be a commodity for a few but the right of everyone, both here and across the continent.”

The march was to proceed from Johannesburg’s Pieter Roos Park to Constitution Hill, where it was hoped Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga would receive a memorandum of concerns.

But this week, Johannesburg metro police told PPEN coordinator Heidi-Jane Esakov, who had been liaising on behalf of the marchers with the authorities regarding the requirements of the Gatherings Act, that the South African Police Service (SAPS) had instructed that “no protest marches will be allowed” during June and July.

Police then agreed to meet Esakov on Wednesday to discuss this, but cancelled the meeting the day before, saying in an email forwarded to all march organisations: “Our manpower will be used for the Fifa World Cup [and] therefore no marches will be approved.”

On Thursday, several of the organisations intending to march said in a statement, “We are deeply concerned by this suspension of our constitutional right to protest … Our hard-won constitutional right cannot be taken away by the whim of policemen or politicians … We regard the [police] action as unconstitutional and are therefore challenging it legally.”

The ban amounts to a “suspension of the Constitution and an imposition of a state of emergency” during the World Cup, PPEN coordinator Salim Vally said. The march was to be peaceful, he added.

Richard Lee, media manager for 1Goal South Africa, said: “We are extremely disappointed the march has been banned. It was an opportunity for South African civil society to make its voice heard before the heads of state summit that we expect to be held on June 11.”

Through Thursday, the Johannesburg metro police’s successive responses to the M&G appeared to soften the hard line it had taken with the marchers.

Metro deputy director André van Loggerenburg first told the M&G on Thursday: “The march is not banned, it’s just not approved. At a provincial commanders meeting in early May, the SAPS requested that, as far as possible, approval for marches during the World Cup not be given, because of the potential for protest and unrest.”

He added: “I’m not exaggerating when I say that all our manpower and resources are concentrated on the World Cup — But we are not unwilling,” he said.

Later, Gauteng SAPS spokesperson Eugene Opperman said, “There’s been a miscommunication. People are saying there’s a total ban on marches, but this is not the case.”

The police will examine each march application to assess threats of security and disruption and the necessary meeting with PPEN should still be held, he said.

SAPS national commissioner General Bheki Cele said metros had the prerogative to approve or deny march applications and the SAPS could only advise them.