Cape Town – Police are out in full force to prevent an
illegal march by the Cape Town Informal Settlement Organisation, despite the
Western Cape High Court granting an interdict against the protest.
The march in which the organisers expected about 50 000 people
to take part, was scheduled for Friday.
Last month protesters claiming to be part of a service
delivery demonstration looted shops and vendors’ stalls in the Cape Town CBD.
Police spokesperson Tembinkosi Kinana said: "The
deployment will comprise members of public order policing [POP], metro police,
traffic officials, law enforcement and emergency officials."
Re-enforcements were called in earlier this week.
Police on horseback would monitor the protest as well.
"Members of railway police will also be on high
alert and deployed in and around train station precincts," said Kinana.
Kinana said air support would be deployed if required.
He warned that protesters breaking the law would be
arrested.
Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille on Thursday appealed to
the organisers of the illegal protest to respect the court interdict.
One of the senior leaders of the group and ANC councillor,
Loyiso Nkohla, was quoted as saying: “…we will only stop the march if a
court of law says so”.
De Lille said: “Now that the court has spoken, I hope
that Nkohla and his colleagues will no longer continue with their plans as this
would be a blatant disregard of the rule of law.”
City spokesperson Wilfred Solomons-Johannes told News24
all highways and major thoroughfares are being monitored.
“The city’s operations centre is on high alert and
co-ordination with the provincial joint command centre has been established.”
The City BRT service tweeted:
?@MyCiTiBus
