CALS Quarterly Issue 12
- Lee-Anne Bruce
Read the latest issue of our quarterly newsletter and find out about our recent wins and losses around activist victimisation and more
Hardly anyone will need reminding that it has been around a year since COVID-19 entered our country and our lives, perhaps changing them forever. One year ago, CALS was coming out of a series of strategy sessions for each of our programmes and our organisation as a whole – which almost immediately had to shift as the pandemic and lockdown arrived.
Since then, we have tried to adapt, moving as much of our work online as possible, from consultations to rallies to teaching and court appearances. With many of our existing cases postponed, we took on a number of projects related to the new regulations governing the state of disaster but still within the scope of our work – many of them relating to police brutality and the suppression of human rights defenders during lockdown.
Recently, more of our longer term cases have come back to life and have seen us arguing before the Constitutional Court over police failures, and supporting activists occupying state-owned land in the City of Cape Town. One of the early highlights of this year is a judgment from the Western Cape High Court which affirms that corporations should not be permitted to threaten human rights defenders using the law – a massive win for our campaign against 'SLAPP' suits and activist victimisation.
Then this past week has sent a brutal reminder that this work is far from over. Not long after the near total ban on 'political' gatherings was lifted, a person was reportedly killed by police using excessive force in response to student protests in Johannesburg. CALS and our partner organisations in the Right2Protest coalition recognise that extreme use of force to disband protest is not new; and neither is the call for free, decolonised education. We will continue to promote the constitutional right to protest and reform institutional responses to protest action.
Click the image below to read more about these and other recent updates.
