Hundreds of squatters took to the streets of Durban over poor housing on Monday after the Durban High Court overruled a council decision not to allow the protest.
Police stopped the marchers earlier in the day, claiming their action was illegal. However, they were allowed to proceed to the Durban City Hall — under a heavy police presence — to hand over a memorandum of grievances after the court’s ruling in favour of the Shack Dwellers’ Movement.
Earlier, the movement accused eThekwini city manager Mike Sutcliffe of banning the march even though it fulfilled all requirements for a march.
The reasons the municipality gave the court for disallowing the march were not ”good enough”, said the movement’s spokesperson, Sbu’ Zikode.
”The organisers of the march were told that some information on their notification to march was missing. In fact, the information was submitted on February 3, but had been returned to them by the police.
”Abahlali then submitted all the additional information on February 17 and informed the authorities that three days was not sufficient for them to organise a march; they therefore would hold the march on February 27.”
Sutcliffe said the group had initially applied to march on February 20.
”We held a meeting to decide on a date and they walked out of that meeting. We did ask for more information and while we were preparing the document that they could march on the 20th, they changed the date to the 27th,” said Sutcliffe.
”Last week they said they don’t care about what the city does and that they will go ahead with the march. This morning when we said it was illegal, they went to court. We respect the court’s decision, but we will question it.”
Sutcliffe added that the city never banned the march.
”We just wanted to go through the proper processes and ensure that it was safe. Anything can happen during a march.” — Sapa