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South African police fired rubber bullets and teargas canisters late Tuesday to disperse supporters of the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters Party (EFF) outside the Gauteng Provincial Legislature in the Johannesburg Central Business District (CBD).
"The EFF supporters provoked us by throwing stones at us. They also attempted to use force to enter into the Legislature building," a police officer at the scene told Anadolu Agency.
An AA reporter at the scene confirmed seeing protesters throwing stones at the police officers and some banged on the closed legislature door.
EFF leader Julius Malema was inside the Legislature at the time of the incident. He was seeking to meet with the house speaker, but he was reportedly told he could only see the deputy speaker. Malema then said he will not leave the building.
"These police won't intimidate us. We shall fight back. This is our country and we have rights," one protester with a stone in one hand and a bottle in the other told AA.
Some protesters fell on the tarmac as they ran for their lives.
"I twisted my hand as I felt on the hard tarmac. Why is the police treating us like this," Sam Mdu, an injured protester, told AA.
Hundreds of EFF supporters marched through the city on Tuesday and converged at the Gauteng Legislature to protest against the removal of their representatives from the provincial parliament for wearing red overalls.
Earlier this month, police was called in at the Gauteng Legislature to evict EFF members, who were dressed in red overalls after they refused to heed a warning from the speaker of the legislature to leave for dressing inappropriately.
Malema warned that the removal of his party's representatives from the Gauteng provincial legislature over dress code would lead to a fight that will make the province ungovernable.
"We will fight. We are not scared of anything," Malema said at a press conference in Johannesburg earlier this month.
Malema also said his political party has capacity to mobilize its supporters and fight physically if they continue removing EFF representatives from the Gauteng legislature through unruly means.
"The EFF is taking both the Gauteng and Eastern Cape legislatures to court for an urgent interdict to stop them from expelling EFF members on basis of dress code," he said.
Malema went on to assert that EFF representatives will continue wearing their red overall and domestic workers clothes in the legislature and parliament.
"It is shameless that South African parliaments have not accepted that parliament should be about ideas and not dress codes," he said.
"They forget that universities themselves used to force students and lecturers into European elite decorum of suites and ties until they realized that ideas are not about what you wear," he said, going on to say that his party was not apologetic for its dress code.
Malema also said the EFF will never surrender to unjust laws and they are determined to consolidate the party as the vanguard of the community and workers struggles.
"The down trodden and poor masses of our people have for the first time taken interest in what lawmakers are doing in parliament because of EFF," he said.
In Gauteng, South Africa's economic capital, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) has 40 members in the provincial assembly, where it battles with 33 opposition representatives.
Each of South Africa's nine provinces has its own unicameral legislature. The size of these regional assemblies varies from 30 to 80 members, depending on the province's population.
The EFF captured international media attention when its members of parliament dressed as miners and domestic workers during their first day in parliament.
By Hassan Isilow
englishnews@aa.com.tr
www.aa.com.tr/en - Gauteng
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