South Africa deploys police as anti-immigrant protests prompt fears

Summary

Businesses in South African cities have been shuttered and police have been deployed to the streets as demonstrators gathered at anti-immigrant protests around the country. Anti-immigrant groups have given undocumented foreign nationals a “deadline” of Tuesday to leave the country. The groups have falsely claimed that undocumented immigrants will face arrest and deportation if they do not leave in time. The South African government has rejected the groups’ threats as false, but thousands of people have been pushed to flee. President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Monday that the right to protest “does not allow people to threaten or intimidate others, or to engage in acts of vandalism or violence”. “Whatever the motivation, taking the law into one’s own hands is vigilantism,” he said. Reporting from a protest in Johannesburg, Al Jazeera correspondent Haru Mutasa said the demonstrators were both working-class and middle-class South Africans and from different tribes around the country. “They all have one goal, which is basically that they want the government to do something about undocumented foreigners in the country,” she said. “They’re saying that they’re frustrated, that they’ve heard promises from the government but they’re not seeing any difference on the ground. “They’re asking why is it, when some of them have degrees, why can’t they get a job?” Mutasa said some protesters were marching through Yeoville and Hillbrow, “areas where many African nationals live alongside some of the locals as well.” “The leaders of the protests had said initially that they’ll try to coordinate their marches and try to be peaceful, but it seems some people in these marches have other ideas, breaking away, causing commotion, trying to break windows, and the police have been trying to contain them, but it’s been a struggle,” she said. The protests started as small gatherings of anti-immigrant groups in April but have been growing recently. The country has seen weeks of xenophobic attacks , with at least two Mozambicans, an Ethiopian and a Malawian killed in anti-immigrant violence, the AFP news agency reports. While some political parties have been calling for peaceful protests, other politicians have increasingly been using anti-immigrant rhetoric as the country’s November elections approach. South Africa has a history of anti-immigrant violence.