Media: D-day for CT land invaders

30 08 2011

Catherine Rice | EWN

Final arguments are expected to be heard in the Western Cape High Court on Tuesday as city bosses continue to try and evict hundreds of people from council land in Tafelsig, Mitchells Plain.

People gathered in front of the courthouse to protest the lack of land and housing for Cape Town’s poor.

The steps of the high court were cordoned off and a line of police officers were stationed at the entrance to protect the building.

A two-year-old child stood at the front of the crowd carrying a placard with the words: “No to Blikkiesdorp”.

About 23 families remain on two fields in Tafelsig but the city wants to move them to the notorious temporary relocation area in Delft.
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Media: South African wine industry rooted in human misery, says report

23 08 2011
in Johannesburg
The Guardian, Tuesday 23 August 2011
Unsuitable housing, pesticide dangers and barriers to union membership catalogued by Human Rights Watch monitors
South African vineyard worker
Just 3% of workers in the Western Cape agricultural sector have union representation. Photograph: Gianluigi Guercia/AFP/Getty Images

There is no question of its flair for producing a world-class chenin blanc, cabernet sauvignon or pinotage at an affordable price. But the provenance of South Africa‘s wines is altogether less savoury, an investigation by human rights monitors has revealed.

Workers on the country’s wine and fruit farms lead “dismal, dangerous lives,” according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), which found on-site housing unfit for habitation, exposure to pesticides without proper safety equipment, lack of access to toilets or drinking water while working and barriers to union representation.

Farm workers contribute millions to South Africa‘s economy, with products that are sold in Tesco and other British supermarkets, yet they are among the lowest wage earners in the country, the group’s report says. Read the rest of this entry »


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Calls for serviced land close to city to house poor

15 08 2011
Thursday Aug 11, 2011 – Cape Times

Shack dwellers and housing NGOs have dismissed sentiments expressed by Human Settlement MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela that affordable housing would provide a lasting solution for the province’s housing needs.

Madikizela made the statement during an Affordable Housing Development, Human Settlement and Finance Summit in Durban recently. Read the rest of this entry »


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Op-ed: Freedom of speech is upside-down

5 08 2011

Note: Versions of this article have appeared in the Catalogue of the 2011 Jozi Book Fair and 5 August 2011 edition of The New Age.

We live in a world turned on its head, a desolate, de-souled world that practices the superstitious worship of machines and the idolatry of arms, an upside-down world with its left on its right, its belly button on its backside, and its head where its feet should be… It’s a world where children work and don’t play, where ‘development’ makes people poorer, where cars are in streets where people should be, where a tiny minority of the world consumes a majority of its resources…If the world is upside-down the way it is now, wouldn’t we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?

-Eduardo Galeano

Celebrated Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano would surely also agree that there is something upside-down about the way freedom of speech is meted out in our society. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Archives, Delft - evictions + resistance, Mainstream and Other News, opinion / academic articles

Solidarity: Activists Arrested Trying To Stop Eviction Of Addison Family

30 07 2011

Note: The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign stands in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in Chicago

July 29, 2011 1:57 PM – CBS Local Chicago

ADDISON, Ill. (CBS) — An Addison mother and three sons are being evicted from their home, and some activists are trying to prevent it.

In so doing, five of those activists found themselves in the back of a police car.

As WBBM Newsradio 780’s Mary Frances Bragiel reports, DuPage County sheriff’s police arrested five members of the Anti-Eviction Campaign, including the spokeswoman, Holly Trig, who is six months pregnant.

The homeowner, Luz Smedbron, and her children had agreed to leave the home at 200 N. Maple St., which was lost to foreclosure and later sold at an auction. Read the rest of this entry »


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Kennedy Road 12 taste freedom

29 07 2011

NIREN TOLSI – Jul 29 2011 13:58 – Mail and Guardian

Outside the Durban magistrate’s court last week members of the “Kennedy Road 12″ 12 members of Abahlali baseMjondolo, a shackdwellers movement based in Durban — stood blinking in the sunlight, almost un­able to believe their fate.

“I’m just too happy. I can’t believe I am outside again,” said 24-year-old Sibulelo Mambi, one of them.

An hour earlier, a nightmare that had begun almost two years ago for the 12 finally ended when magistrate Sharon Marks acquitted them of charges ranging from murder to public violence. Read the rest of this entry »


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Media: Give us decent housing!

28 07 2011

Rusana Philander – The New Age

About 500 people protested over access to housing outside the High Court and offices of the city on Wednesday.

The protests came as 16 people from Tafelsig, Mitchells Plain, were due to appear in the High Court after the city obtained an

DEMANDING: Protestors gather outside the Cape Town High Court on Wednesday to demand decent homes. Picture: Rusana Philander

interdict against them.

The case is related to the invasion of the Swartklip sports field and Kapteinsklip in Mitchells Plain by more than 4000 people two months ago.

During the invasion many people were injured and the land invaders’ possessions impounded. The city has since obtained an interdict to remove people from the land.

The protesters who gathered outside the court yesterday were from the Mitchells Plain Backyarders Association.

They carried placards and chanted: “Access to housing is a constitutional right and we want houses for our children.” Read the rest of this entry »


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Media: Show of strength outside court

28 07 2011

July 28 2011 at 12:28pm – Cape Times – Shanti Aboobaker, Leila Samodien and Lauren Isaacs

About 300 people gathered on the steps of the Western Cape High Court where Tafelsig backyard dwellers were up against the city council. Photo: Mxolisi Madela

THEY came en masse, bearing placards and chanting as they gathered on the steps of the Western Cape High Court yesterday.

This as about 300 members of the Mitchells Plain Backyarders Association – supported by the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, Communities for Social Change, the Mandela Park Backyarders and Abahlali baseMjondolo associations – waited outside the court to hear the outcome of the case in which they face being removed from land they were occupying illegally.

This week the occupants submitted their answering papers in the matter that sees them pitted against the City of Cape Town.

In affidavits by some of the occupants, residents there outlined their living conditions which they say were “not conditions in which any human being should live”. Read the rest of this entry »


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Media: Tafelsig backyarders case postponed

28 07 2011

AEC Note: (1) There were closer to 1,000 people at the march, rather than just 400 estimated in this article. (2) Also, the march, while it did not have a permit, was a legal march according to the Gatherings Act.

Thursday July 28th 2011 – West Cape News

The city’s application to evict thousands of people from city-owned land in Tafelsig, Mitchells Plain was today postponed by the

Ibrahim Moosa from the Mitchell's Plain Backyarders Association leads about 400 people on a march to the Civic Centre today. The march coincided with the Western Cape High Court's postponement of an application by 16 backyarders opposing evicition from city-owned land. Photo: Sandiso Phaliso/WCN

Western Cape High Court to August 30.

Judge Nonkosi Saba postponed the matter as the respondents (backyarders) had only filed their papers on Monday. As a result the city could not file their reply in time for today’s court date.

Sheldon Magardie from Lawyers for Human Rights, said the LHR was representing 16 of the 4000 backyarders who were evicted from city-owned land in Tafelsig on May 14. The 16 respondents are those who have remained on the land.

About 400 people from Mitchells Plain Residents and Backyarders Association, Proudly Manenberg, and sympathetic NGOs, gathered in front of the High Court in support of the backyarders’ application and to protest the lack of land and housing for Cape Town’s poor.

Demonstrator Mary Petersen from Elsies River said about 50 people from Leonsdale Community in Elsies River had come to support the backyarders. Read the rest of this entry »


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Give us housing delivery data or else, city is warned

23 07 2011

Regina Graham - July 6 2011 at 12:41pm

THE Right2Know campaign is threatening further action against the City of Cape Town if it has not provided all the information requested in a PAIA application over a month ago.

Murray Hunter, national co-ordinator of the Right2Know Campaign, said that documents from the city were delivered yesterday.

“It is a huge pile of information that we received from the city, but is it actually answering the questions we asked?” said Hunter.

On May 24, community organisers from Blikkiesdorp, Zille-Raine Heights, Newfields Village Anti-Eviction Campaign and the Mandela Park backyarders joined Right2Know and submitted applications to the city requesting access to information about housing delivery and resettlement plans. Read the rest of this entry »


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