Up to 350 protesters are expected to gather outside the Grahamstown Magistrate's Court on Wednesday 29 February, where social activist Ayanda Kota is due to appear on charges of resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer as well as a third charge, of theft, which triggered an alleged assault on him by officers at Grahamstown.
Up to 350 protesters are expected to gather outside the Grahamstown Magistrate's Court on Wednesday 29 February, where social activist Ayanda Kota is due to appear on charges of resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer as well as a third charge, of theft, which triggered an alleged assault on him by officers at Grahamstown.
According to organiser Paul Hjul, several organisations and communities have been invited to participate in the solidarity action, starting around 8.30am. In his notice to the municipality, he writes that "the public are taking a stand against all forms of police brutality and are demanding a full investigation into the circumstances of his arrest and assault".
Participants are expected to come from campus, along High Street, and along Bathurst Street. The charges against Kota arose from an incident on January 12, in which police summoned him to the police station. There they informed him he was under arrest for the theft of three books from Rhodes University sociology lecturer Claudia Martinez-Mullen.
In the tussle that followed, police allegedly beat Kota up and humiliated him in front of his 6-year-old son. According to witness Richard Pithouse, lecturer in politics at Rhodes University, the policemen's taunts included a call by one of them to “Look who is the (Grocott’s Mail) newsmaker of the year now!”
He was released on bail the next day and reporters described visible signs of injury. Kota has since laid charges of assault against the police. Martinez-Mullen, his former political comrade has meanwhile been struggling to clear her name in what she described in a public statement as "a campaign which has been drummed up against me, reaching as far as New Zealand [amounting]to the equivalent of a public lynching of my political reputation".
