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Strategies of Resistance
Forms of Resistance
Social movements

A Place in the City
is a powerful film documenting the land rights movement through the lives of members of Durban shackdwellers, Abahlali baseMjondolo.

Nearly 15 years since apartheid ended, millions of black South Africans still live in self-built shacks – without sanitation, adequate water supplies, or electricity.

But A Place in the City will overturn all your assumptions about ’slums’ and the people who live in them.

In this film, shot in the vast shack settlements in and around Durban, members of Abahlali baseMjondolo, the grassroots shackdwellers’ movement, lay out their case – against forcible eviction; for decent services – with passion, eloquence, and sweet reason. The film captures the horrible conditions in which shackdwellers live – but it also captures Abahlali’s bravery and resilience, in a political climate where grassroots campaigners like them are more likely to be met with rubber bullets than with offers to talk.

‘For the first time now’, says S’bu Zikode, Abahlali’s elected leader, ‘poor people have started to speak for themselves. Now, that challenges those who are paid to think for us – who are paid to speak for us.’

At the heart of Abahlali’s struggle is the struggle for meaningful citizenship rights for South Africa’s poor majority. ‘Or does freedom in South Africa,’ asks Abahlali volunteer organiser Louisa Motha, ‘only belong to the rich?’

Links:
Abahlali baseMjondolo
Khayelitshastruggles
Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign

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Shackdwellers
South Africa
Abahlali baseMjondolo;

Nigerian Curiosity is maintaining regular contact with Jonathon Elendu’s family and is publishing regular updates on his detention. The reports are reminiscent of the ugly days of Abacha when disappearance, detention and torture of journalists, activists, politicians, writers, and just about anyone who dared to dissent, where regular occurrences. This latest update reports that Elendu is no longer in SSS custody but has been transferred to the custody of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) which is responsible for corruption. As NG asks, how do you go from being charged with sedition and money laundering to corruption in one week?

Meanwhile the Nigeria’s Human Rights Writers Association (HURIWA) write that Elendu has been tortured whilst in custody.

According to Nigeria’s Human Rights Writers Association (HURIWA), detained Nigerian blogger, Jonathan Elendu has been “tortured to either disclose the sources of the several embarrassing news reports on prominent political leaders in Nigeria” and is on a hunger strike because he is afraid that he will be poisoned in jail. HURIWA’s National Coordinator, Mr. Onwubike also said that Elendu “was also being reportedly pressured into framing up some others.”

FRIDAY 31ST OCTOBER - FREE JONATHON ELENDU DAY

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Nigeria
Jonathon Elendu

Via Committee to Protect Bloggers and Nigerian Curiosity

Nigeria’s State Security Service or SSS, the same intelligence agency that shut down Channels TV for legally broadcasting incorrect information about President Yar’Adua, is at it again.

Jonathan Elendu, the writer at Elendu Reports, was arrested by Nigeria’s SSS on Saturday evening upon arrival in Nigeria from the United States. Elendu was reportedly arrested to answer questions because his ‘activities’ have allegedly generated some national security issues. One publication specifically reported that Elendu was arrested for “sponsoring a guerilla news agency.”

He was held for over 24 hours before he was interrogated. A spokesperson for the SSS told the Nigerian media that the “rule of law” would be followed and that Elendu wold be given an opportunity to defend himself, saying,

“Mr. Jonathan Elendu was invited today to answer questions on matters concerning national security which has to do wtih his reports. [sic] We are following the rule of law in whatever we are doing. After the question and answer, we can now establish the facts why he was invited.”

It is not clear whether Elendu has been released or whether he will be held indefinitely. What is clear is that “other on-line publishers who are abroad run the risk of being arrested on their return to Nigeria.” Continue reading

Update
The arrest of Jonathan Elendu is one in a long line of attacks against freedom of the press in Nigeria (arrests, harassments and murder of anyone critical of the government) and one which is particularly characteristic of military dictatorships the remnants of which continue to remain active in the country.

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Jonathan Elendu
Nigeria
Elendu Reports
Nigerian Bloggers
Nigeria SSS

On the 10th September, two Ugandan LGBTI activists, Georgina (aka) Oundo George and Brenda (aka Kiiza) were taken into custody by two men in plain clothes who identified themselves as police officers. The two activists were held illegally for one week, were denied any legal representation, denied bail and never brought before a judge. Under both Ugandan and International law the detention was illegal…….

Article 3.9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states that, “anyone arrested or detained on a criminal charge shall be brought promptly before a judge.” Article 23 of the Ugandan Constitution requires that an arrested person must appear before a judge within 48 hours of arrest.

Georgiana and Brenda were tortured by the police who demanded they provide the names and addresses of other Ugandan LGBTI activists. Both activists were accused of “spreading homosexuality” and following their release on the 17th September are required to report to the police daily. What happened to Georgiana and Brenda is part of a five year harassment of LGBTI people in the country including 12 arrests.

Authorities have harassed LGBT human rights defenders in their homes and in public and fined a private radio station that broadcast a program on HIV prevention among men who have sex with men. In July 2005, Uganda’s Parliament passed an amendment to the constitution making Uganda only the second country in the world to use its supreme law to outlaw marriage between people of the same sex. In 2007, a coalition of religious leaders marched through the streets of Kampala demanding the arrests of LGBT people with one cleric even calling for the “starving to death” of homosexuals. Buttressed by the official homophobia of the state, the Ugandan media has published lists of gay men and lesbians, leading to physical violence, loss of employment and the curtailing of educational opportunities for those LGBT people who were named

[Read more…]