ERMELO police arrested more than 200 members of the Landless People’s Movement in Mpumalanga earlier this week for staging an illegal march after they delivered a memorandum to the Mpumalanga Department of Land Affairs’s Ermelo office.
The protesters were detained for more than four hours at the police station before being officially “charged” en masse, prior to appearing before the local magistrate who dismissed the charges against all but six of those arrested.
The six who are charged include the group’s national organiser Mangaliso Khubeka, Mpumalanga leaders Bhutiza Hlatshwayo, Fana Mthethwa and Kalip Sibonyone, as well as the National Land Committee’s coordinator Andile Mngxitama and its media consultant Ann Eveleth.
They were granted bail of R300 each and ordered to appear in court on May 6.
The National Land Committee condemned the unwarranted arrest of landless people for exercising their constitutional right to freedom of assembly.