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Law protects squatters
21/08/2007 07:19 - (SA)
Pretoria - A group of squatters in one of Pretoria's more affluent suburbs have obtained an urgent High Court order interdicting the police from harassing them and destroying their shacks.
Judge Roger Claassen said on Monday the police had acted unlawfully when they burnt about 50 shacks and evicted squatters from their camp on the corner of De Ville Bois Mareuil and Garsfontein roads in Moreleta Park.
He ordered that temporary dwellings must be erected for the evicted squatters and interdicted the police from assaulting or intimidating the squatters or demolishing their shacks without a court order.
The police apparently swooped on the squatters last week, burning shacks and allegedly assaulting some of the squatters, in spite of an earlier undertaking to stop harassing them and a landmark Appeal Court ruling, ordering officials to rebuild the structures they demolished in an earlier raid in March last year.
'Crime fighting operation'
Colin Dredge of Tswelope Step by Step, an organisation which assists the homeless, said the squatters consist of female-headed households with babies, families and single young adults.
During the two-and-a-half years they have lived on the land, they have constantly been attacked, harassed and even shot at.
Their belongings were torched in two previous raids last year, with the municipality claiming it was an operation to "eradicate alien vegetation and the police claiming it was a "crime fighting operation".
The matter went to the Appeal Court in Bloemfontein, where the Tshwane municipality eventually conceded that the eviction had been unlawful and apologised for its behaviour.
The court found that the rights of the squatters had been violated and ordered the government agencies involved to rebuild their homes.
The camp was again raided while the appeal matter was still pending and last week police allegedly launched a renewed attack on the squatters in the early hours of the morning, dragging people out of their shacks and torching everything inside.
One of the squatters, Daniel Motsamai, said police in uniform had burst into his shack, hit and kicked him and took his cellphone and his life savings of R400 before torching his belongings, including his food, clothes and identity document. He had also seen police "savagely" attacking others and torching their homes.
Dredge said the squatters were destitute and had nowhere else to go. Most of them were illiterate and unemployed and had no way of protecting themselves against unlawful police operations.
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