by Cllr Dimakatso Moloisane - DA Councillor City of Johannesburg

On Friday 21 September Members of Democratic Alliance Rainbow Network (LGBTIQ+) executive attended a Gauteng Provincial legislature LGBTIQA+ Sectoral Parliament in Carletonville.

Before the official session began a group of LGBTIQ activists demanded that the session be discontinued as there were outstanding issues that needed to be addressed.

The demands were not heard and the activists were requested to leave the house, upon refusal to do so, SAPS was called to remove the members. DARN joined the protesters as the issue that were raised spoke to what we believe in. The activists were taken out by police officers, which was followed by a walkout by other activists.

Outside the house I alerted the police officers that precinct had been declared a provincial legislature chambers & in line with the rules of the house police officers cannot enter the house and remove members as that is the duty of the sergeant in Arms, in which she had failed and the speaker of the house should have adjusted the meeting to hear the frustration of fellow activists.

We requested the police to speak to the chairperson of committees in the provincial legislature as the presiding officer, we asked the GPL official to suspend the sitting and come outside to address the activists, this did not happen and police officers were called to the scene to stop us from gaining access to the sitting. Only a few minutes before the sitting was concluded was I allowed to go in and still no response was given from the chairperson of committees as the presiding officer.

We see this as nothing but an electioneering exercise for the ANC using state funds pretending to care about the LGBTIQA+ community, we believe that such engagement must be a true reflection of what is happening on the ground on a daily basis. A few days ago the provincial crime stats were released and nothing relating to hate crime & corrective rape was reported where Kwa-thema, Alexandra, Vaal & Soweto have heard cases of hate crime and corrective rape. We demanded to know what has been done to address such and what is provincial government doing to create & workshop police officers on dealing LGBTIQA+ crime related issues.

We will continue to fight for what is right & just for all our citizens in this province.

Media Enquiries
Dimakatso Moloisane
DA Rainbow Network Gauteng Executive member & City of Johannesburg Councillor