Scores of people protested outside the Peddie Magistrate’s Court in the Eastern Cape on Friday during the appearance of five people charged with the kidnapping and assault of two women academics, SABC television news reported.
Michelle Cocks of Rhodes University and Isla Grundy of the University of Stellenbosch were attacked and left for dead on Monday evening near Peddie.
The crowd, protesting under the leadership of the Peddie Women’s Support Centre, demanded that the five, including a minor and an 18-year-old woman, be refused bail.
Fezeka Mantakana, a director of the Peddie Women’s Support Centre, said: ”We don’t need such criminals here, they are spoiling our area. We have started a tourism project here, we want tourists to come and visit. Peddie is a poor area and we need researchers to come and help us here.”
The faces of the five were hidden, because an identification parade will be held at a later date. The case was postponed to the end of this month for further investigation. The five will remain in custody.
The two academics were on a field trip for a project aiming to help rural Ciskei communities manage indigenous forests when they were attacked. They were found tied up in the bush on Tuesday morning by
a herder.
The women’s faces were so severely beaten that doctors said both of them would need reconstructive surgery once they recovered.
Cocks, who was four months pregnant, had a miscarriage as a result of the attack. – Sapa