JourneyOnline
South African police have raided Johannesburg’s Central Methodist Church arresting as many as 1500 homeless people there, many of them thought to be Zimbabweans, leading to strong protests from the local bishop.
Bishop Paul Verryn has played a key role in the care of refugees and asylum-seekers from Zimbabwe at the church. He said he was angered at what he saw as an excessive use of force and a violation of sanctity in the police treatment of workers and those sheltering in the church.
"They did not have a warrant," Verryn told the South African Broadcasting Corporation about the action of the police. "They have pushed me around and treated us despicably." Verryn said he would have co-operated with the police if they had asked for his help in investigating anything illegal. But he said the way in which the police handled those arrested was a clear violation of their rights and was also "an attack on the very institution of the church".
The church was a once middle class congregation supported by mostly white South Africans and several years ago it was the setting for a glittering wedding of one of Nelson Mandela’s daughters.
The police raided the church complex on the night of 30 January in what they said was a search for "drugs, guns and illegal immigrants". The SABC reported that more than 1400 people were loaded into police trucks and taken to a police station that still bears the name of John Vorster, a South African prime minister who was a hard-line proponent of apartheid.
Some Methodist leaders had expressed concern at the uncontrolled influx of homeless people to the building, seemingly on a permanent basis, but they were nevertheless critical of the raid.
The superintendent minister of the Salty Print Methodist Circuit in Cape Town, the Rev Mark Stephenson, told Ecumenical News International that church buildings had historically been places of refuge for the persecuted and for refugees. Still, he said he felt the Johannesburg church did not have the facilities to cope with such a large number of residents. He said: "This ministry, which is an acted parable of a Christian response to the problem of poverty in our cities, could have been better managed.
"Nevertheless, it is completely unacceptable for armed police to invade a religious sanctuary and bundle desperate people into police vans in the middle of the night. This is reminiscent of the invasion of churches during the apartheid era, when peaceful protests took place inside cathedrals and churches, and police had no qualms about entering and arresting people."
It is likely that any people without legal refugee or immigrant status will be deported.
The church is situated in the central business district of Johannesburg, but over the last 20 years this part of South Africa’s largest city and its commercial hub, has been in decline. Major corporations have relocated to new suburban satellite business areas, property values have declined, crime has increased and most white residents of the surrounding apartments have moved to the suburbs, and now worship in churches there.
As its membership changed, reflecting the influx of former residents of the city’s outer black suburbs and African migrants, the church began a food and shelter ministry to the inner-city homeless. This gradually expanded until more than 1000 refugees, according to some reports, many of them economic migrants from Zimbabwe, were living on the church’s premises in cramped and unhygienic conditions.
South African media reports have said about 4000 Zimbabweans make their way in to neighbouring South Africa each day to look for food and work, eventually arriving in Johannesburg.
Some aid agencies estimate there are three million Zimbabweans living in South Africa and their arrival has triggered resentment among some in their host country who accuse them of stoking up the level of violent crime in the country and of taking jobs.
Ecumenical News International
Photo : WORLD NEWS
