ANC proportional councillor Loyiso Nkohla, one the apparent ringleaders in the "faeces war", has been arrested.
|||Cape Town - ANC proportional councillor and youth league member Loyiso Nkohla was arrested on Tuesday morning at Cape Town police station.
Nkohla joins 184 people who were arrested in Woodstock on their way to the provincial legislature on Monday to dump human waste outside Premier Helen Zille’s office.
All the members of the group arrested on Monday appeared in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday morning, among them former ANC councillor and suspended ANC Youth League member Andile Lili.
While some were released on Monday evening, Lili and six others remained in custody. They were charged with contravening the Gatherings Act, failing to give notice of a protest, contravening a court order, violating the Health Care Act by transporting hazardous material (human faeces on public transport), and for travelling without a valid train ticket.
Nkohla and former ANC councillor Lili seem to be the ringleaders in the “faeces war” on Zille. The two, armed with tanks full of human waste, led the first group of protesters to the provincial legislature last week to spill the sewage outside her office. A day later, the pair were among the group that flung faeces at Zille’s convoy.
A group from Khayelitsha told the Cape Argus before entering the court that they would “continue to fight until there were no more portaloos or bucket systems” in Cape Town.
Sibusiso Zonke, 23, said the charges against him would not stop him taking part in more “poo protests”.
“Since when is it illegal for us to sing Struggle songs in the train when people can sing religious songs without getting arrested? They (the police) must tell us why they arrested us.”
He also mentioned the fact that mayor Patricia de Lille was wearing protective gear and a face mask during her visit to Barcelona and Kanana on Tuesday to clean toilets.
“Why was De Lille wearing a mask yesterday while we have to smell and live with the smell of s*** in our homes every day? She can’t handle the smell, yet she expects us to live with it.”
Cape Argus