JP Smith slams Bheki Cele for 'moral cowardice' at Total Shutdown meeting
Mayoral committee member for safety and security JP Smith says the manner in which he and Cape Town councillor Angus McKenzie were silenced at a meeting in Bonteheuwel was undemocratic.
On Wednesday, Smith and McKenzie were asked by Police Minister Bheki Cele to exit the meeting when Total Shutdown protesters demanded that they leave.
The purpose of the meeting was to discuss Tuesday's protests around Cape Town against poverty and gangsterism within certain Western Cape communities.
"This is not apartheid anymore. You don’t get to silence your opponents by chasing them away and preventing their voices from being heard," Smith said at press conference on Thursday.
"I’m doing this presser precisely so that my voice can be heard, so that we can say the things that we were denied through the censorship of the minister’s intervention yesterday."