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Rastafarian warders fired
01/08/2007 20:09 - (SA)
Cape Town - The Western Cape secretary of the Police and Prisons civil Rights Union, Mncedisi Mbolekwa, says five warders at the Pollsmoor prison have been given dismissal notices because they refuse to cut their Rastafarian dreadlocks.
Mbolekwa said the union would take the matter to arbitration and if necessary to the Constitutional Court.
"We are appealing against the dismissal because we see it as unfounded and unfair, and it violates their constitutional rights," he said.
"There's a right of religious belief which cannot be violated."
Until the arbitration, the five men would continue to get their salaries, but would be suspended from work.
Mbolekwa said the department alleged its dress code required the warders, all five of whom are men, to keep their hair short.
What angered the union was that there had been, for a period of two years, a director at the regional commissioner's office in Goodwood who was a Rastafarian and who wore dreadlocks unchallenged.
Mbolekwa said the arbitration would be done by the General Public Service sectoral bargaining chamber, a process equivalent to going to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, and should come up within a month.
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