Tensions Rise as Pro-Xenophobia March Holds in South Africa on Friday

A group of South African citizens, which has planned a march against foreigners in Pretoria said it will go ahead with the demonstration on Friday, despite the Tshwane Metro Police Department (TMPD) rejecting their application.

The Mamelodi Concerned Residents intends marching to the Home Affairs Department to protest against government allowing immigrants into the country.

A leader of the Mamelodi Concerned Residents said, on Wednesday, they believe their democratic right to demonstrate is being violated and that the march will go ahead.

It is understood the TMPD had security concerns in light of recent attacks against immigrants.

But a rival group, Coalition of Civics against Xenophobia’s coordinator, Mametlwe Sebei, says they’re organising a campaign to fight xenophobia.

“This includes organising community patrols against xenophobic mobs, destruction of property and killing of immigrants.”

He has urged the public not participate in the anti-immigrant march.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian Union of South Africa has condemned what it says are stereotypical views claiming its nationals are responsible for crime.

Several Nigerian shops and houses have been targeted in Rosettenville, Atteridgeville, Mamelodi and Pretoria West this month by locals claiming their properties are used as brothels and drug dens.

Residents say they have reported these incidents to the police but police are too slow to respond to their information.

But the union’s Emaka Collins says the attacks are of a xenophobic nature.

“Our appeal to the people of South Africa is not to paint everyone with the brush, criminality has no nationality.”

The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation’s Nomfundo Mogapi says government must deal with communities’ bread and butter issues.

In reaction to the development, the Nigerian government has urged the African Union to step in to stop xenophobic attacks on its citizens and other Africans in South Africa.

President Muhammadu Buhari’s special adviser on the diaspora, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, reportedly said there was a need for the continental body to intervene urgently, claiming that in the last two years about 116 Nigerians have been killed in South Africa , including 20 last year.

Similarly, Amnesty International has criticised South Africa for police brutality and xenophobic violence.

The organisation has released its latest report on human rights, calling 2016 the year of &us versus them”.

It mentions America and the rise of Donald Trump, along with Britain’s decision to leave the European Union.

Amnesty International says that in 2016, the world became a darker and more unstable place. In the UK, Brexit is described as a low point which sparked hate crimes and created a hostile atmosphere for refugees and migrants.

The report speaks of the entire groups being dehumanised through populist politics in the US and elsewhere, and the bloodshed in places like Syria.

And in South Africa, it notes government’s decision to leave the International Criminal Court and raises concerns about attacks on human rights defenders.

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