Tag: foreigners

Xenophobia rules Soweto

The Mozambican man cowered, trying to protect his head, as the blows pounded his body on Tuesday.

The suspected thief, known only as Johannes, begged the growing crowd of angry residents of Snake Park, Soweto, to stop assaulting him.

But he and his alleged accomplice found no mercy from this impoverished community.

Its residents are “sick and tired of being victims” of crime.

“Today, we’re going to kill these Mozambican thieves,” said Sipho Ngwekazi licking his lips.

Almost to make his point, the unemployed 23-year-old pointed to a towering mine dump that looms over Block 1 in Snake Park.

“That’s where we’ll dump their bodies,” he vowed. “You’ll see what mob justice is all about.”

He and the rest of the mob were following as the two, the other called Petrus, were dragged to a house in Block 9, where they were believed to be hiding stolen TVs.

Their hands were tied with wire, their faces bloodied, as they were dragged for several kilometres in the searing heat.

“If you don’t give us the TVs, we’re going to burn you. That’s how we’ll kill you,” warned some residents.

“We have to take the law into our own hands. The police don’t care. They will just release them,” said Lindiwe Jonas, a resident of Block 2.

“Yes, we have to teach them a lesson… we will burn rope in the hands they used to steal from us,” said her friend, Esther Letswalo. “This is why we don’t want foreigners here in our community.”

A patrolling Dobsonville police van tried to follow the crowd through Snake Park’s dusty alleys.
Police back-up was called.

As the crowd bayed for his blood, Johannes, his shirt bloodied, and his one eye swollen and sealed shut, seemed to plead with the police to intervene as the crowd tried to get to him. The police then encircled him, probably because there were journalists present.

“We are taking them with us,” an armed policewoman informed the crowd. “We can’t allow mob justice.”
The police put the two men in their van and drove off.

The community roared, incensed.

“The law is useless,” spat one resident, who didn’t want to be named. “The police will just release them. They get away with it.”

Later a small group of residents threatened to burn the shacks of the men they suspected of being thieves.

Instead, they darted inside one of the men’s homes, where they were seen stealing jewellery.

Source: The Star

China detains South Africans for ‘propaganda videos’

A total of 20 people sent to China by a religiously inspired charity have been detained, most of them British or South African, the organisation said, adding some had been accused of watching “propaganda videos”.

Gift of the Givers, a disaster relief charity based in Pietermaritzburg in South Africa, said 20 of its associates were detained Friday at Ordos airport in China’s Inner Mongolia region.

It said 10 were South Africans, nine British, and one an Indian national.

“No reasons were given for the arrest. The Chinese, now trying to find reasons for the detention suggested that some members were linked to a terror group,” it added.

As of Tuesday 11 had been released, it added on a Facebook page. “The other nine are being held without charge at a detention centre on the accusation that they were watching propaganda videos.”

The public security ministry in Beijing did not immediately respond to a request for comment by AFP.

Gift of the Givers describes itself on its website as being inspired by Muhammed Saffer Effendi al Jerrahi, a master of Sufism, a mystical form of Islam.

The group, which has provided medical equipment and training in multiple countries in Asia and Africa, says its staff are “facilitators of Almighty God’s Aid… distributing it from Him to all of mankind. This is made possible only by His Grace and Permission.”

“God Almighty Exists,” it adds. “This is a Gracious God to Whom belong the Most Beautiful Attributes.”

Chinese regulations passed in 2000 ban foreigners from all missionary activity including “distributing religious propaganda materials.”

The ruling Communist party, suspicious of overseas groups, has in recent months tightened controls on foreign charities working in the country.

State-run media have accused some foreign groups of attempting to foment revolution and overthrow the party.

Police too have cracked down on foreign missionaries in China, detaining a Canadian Christian couple near the North Korean border last year.

Beijing also blames what it calls Islamist terrorists for ongoing violence in the mainly Muslim far western region of Xinjiang.

The South Africans were originally detained “with no access to communication or legal representation” and included several doctors, Gift of the Givers said.

The group’s planned 47-day tour of China had gone “horribly wrong”, it added.

A spokeswoman for the British embassy in Beijing said Wednesday that 11 British citizens had been held in northern China, two of whom held South African dual nationality.

Officials were seeking “further clarifications” on the detentions, spokeswoman Natasha Simpson added.

South African foreign affairs ministry spokesman Nelson Kgwete told local television that the government had been informed “about the arrest of 10 South African citizens in China” and the embassy was providing consular assistance.

Source: AFP

Foreign national shot in Free State

A 34-year-old foreign businessman was shot dead at the Tseki shopping complex in QwaQwa in the Free State.

Police spokesperson Thandi Mbambo said the incident occurred on Wednesday evening.

She said at around 17:50 police received a report that a man had been shot at the shopping complex. On arrival there they found a foreign national businessman lying on the ground near his shop.

The man had bullet wounds to his upper left eye and upper body. Paramedics certified him dead at the scene. Mbambo said it was later discovered that the businessman had been robbed of an undisclosed amount of money.

A case of murder has been registered for further investigation.

Somalia, Malawi concerned about attacks on nationals

Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba and KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Premier Senzo Mchunu are to meet diplomats from African States in Durban Tuesday morning to discuss the wave of attacks on foreign nationals in the province.

King Goodwill Zwelithini met with the security cluster ministers in Durban Monday night to discuss the situation and the state of the country’s borders, including cross-border crime.

So far Malawi and Somalia are among the countries that have expressed concern about the plight of their nationals in KZN, but Zimbabwe has already indicated that the matter would carry no weight.

The Somali embassy said it was trying to trace its citizens and help them escape the violence. It has demanded urgent assistance from the Department of International Relations and Co-operation.

The Malawian government said it would be helping citizens living in South Africa to return to their homeland following the violence.

Both Gigaba and Mchunu are expected to assure the diplomats that the government is dealing with the situation of attacks on foreign nationals, which seems to continue in the province, threatening lives and stability.

Thus far, at least five people have been killed since the violence started. Thousands others have been displaced from their places of residence in various areas in the eThekwini municipality.

Businesses owned by foreign nationals have been destroyed and looted.

Meanwhile, more looting of shops has been reported overnight from KwaMashu and other townships in the Durban area. Thousands of foreigners displaced by earlier violence are being housed in three special camps in the area.

Some observers are blaming criminality rather than xenophobia for the looting. But political analyst, Protas Madlala, says economic hardships are a major contributing factor to attacks on foreign nationals.

Madlala says such incidents normally happen international in situations where the economy is very bad. He adds: “And the in-group, which in this case will be South Africans, attribute all their sufferings especially economic suffering and social suffering because there’s housing issues as well, they always attribute that kind of suffering to the outside group.”