ANC Slams City of Cape Town for rejecting Palestinian protest application
4 August 2015
The African National Congress is extremely angered but not surprised that the DA lead City of Cape Town has rejected a protest permit application by Pro-Palestinian activists. We condemn this action in the strongest possible terms.
We are gravely concerned by an ever increasing pattern of ongoing manipulation and abuse of the bureaucratic processes to undermine civil society protests whenever it goes against DA policy. The planned protest by a collective of civil society organizations was rejected based on minor and insignificant bureaucratic reasons. It is well known though that the true reason for the rejection is the DAs blatant support of the Israeli apartheid state.
It is also a well known fact that the Democratic Alliance has maintained a cozy relationship between the City of Cape Town, the Israeli government and its’ lobbyists. The constitutional right of civil society to gather and protest is selectively undermined by the City of Cape Town when it chooses to allow procedures to protect certain activities, while using the same procedures to reject other activities.
A pattern of clear intolerance towards Palestinian solidarity movements is emerging, as the City continuously places unnecessary restrictions and even rejects protest applications. We remember full well when the City of Cape Town failed to even respond to the ANCYL’s permit application for a Palestinian solidarity protest last year.