After two years of settlement negotiations with the City of Cape Town, which eventually were unsuccessful, Bulelani Qolani, 30, has decided to sue. He is seeking compensation for the physical and emotional injuries he sustained when Anti-Land Invasion officers destroyed his shack in June 2020.
READ: Man dragged naked from home to sue City of Cape Town – mass protest campaign to start
UNLAWFUL LOCKDOWN DEMOLITIONS
On 28 June 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 lockdown, Qolani built a home for himself and his family in an informal settlement known as eThembeni in Khayelitsha.
According to a summons served to the City of Cape Town on Tuesday, before building a house in eThembeni, Qolani was renting as a backyard dweller in Makhaza, Khayelitsha, until he lost his job in April of that year, and the family had to move.
Two days after Qolani fashioned his home out of corrugated iron and wood, members of the Cape Town Anti-Land Invasion Unit demolished a few of the homes established in eThembeni, but Qolani’s shack was spared.
However, the next day, the law enforcement members returned to eThembeni and destroyed the shack. The events were captured on video and made headlines across South Africa. The demolitions were later deemed unlawful.
The video showed Qolani being dragged from his shack while naked. He was apparently about to take a bath when the law enforcement members arrived.
In the wake of the incident, the City of Cape Town accused Qolani of staging the incident, with Cape Town MayCo Member for safety and security, JP Smith, being the most vocal.
READ: Cele and JP Smith exchange war of words over eviction of Bulelani Qolani
MARCH TO CIVIC CENTRE IN SUPPORT OF QOLANI’S CASE
On Wednesday, civil society groups marched to the Cape Town Civic Centre to support Qolani’s court action and deliver a memorandum of demands to City officials.
“We have come together as landless people, social movements and organisations to stand up and push back against the continued oppression and abuse of the poor and in solidarity with Bulelani Qolani.,” read a statement issued before the march.
The groups asked the City to treat Qolani fairly; respond to social issues with compassion; respect the dignity and life of black people; involve Social Development in addressing homelessness; follow legal channels before conducting evictions; provide basic services to informal settlements and indigent communities; make prime land available for housing; and treat all people as humans in the City.
An activist from the Housing Assembly in Cape Town, Kenneth Matlawe, was one of the speakers who addressed the dozens of protestors gathered at the steps of the Civic Centre. He said there was no housing struggle without the struggle for women.
“Our sisters, our mothers are being brutalized, and at the forefront of our struggles, comrades, our sisters, our mothers, and they are the first ones to feel the brand of the law enforcement,” he said.
Matlawe said the police must be defunded if they cannot protect people as promised so that the people can defend themselves.
Before protestors dispersed, the Executive Director of Security and Safety for the City of Cape Town, Vincent Botto, accepted and signed the memorandum. He briefly addressed the crowd and said the City would respond in the stipulated period.
QOLANI SEEKS R1.4M BUT IS STILL OPEN TO NEGOTIATIONS
Qolani’s attorney, Danielle Louw of the Ndifuna Ukwazi Law Centre, updated the crowd about how legal matters would unfold now that the City of Cape Town has been served.
“The City will respond after 15 days, and it is then that the matter will then be going to trial,” said Louw. She added that Qolani is still open to negotiations and is willing to take an out-of-court settlement if the offer is right.
“We will talk, but we will not accept something that is not humane, that is not respecting the dignity of Mr Qolani,” added Louw.
“It must be in respect of his dignity and take into account the gravity of the situation so that people know that they cannot do the same thing to people living in the same situation as Qolani.”
According to the court papers, which noted that Qolani suffered “humiliation, ridicule, contempt, impairment to his dignity, personality and bodily integrity.” He is seeking a total of R1 426 000 in damages.
As previously reported, in July 2022, the Cape Town High Court ruled that the City of Cape Town was wrong in its interpretation and application of “counter spoilation” when it demolished shacks and evicted families from their homes during the COVID-19 lockdown. The City is appealing the matter in the Supreme Court of Appeal.
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