#Diepslootviolence: SAPS’ lack of action leads to community taking law into their own hands

8 April 2022

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng is calling on the Gauteng MEC for Community Safety, Faith Mazibuko to liaise with her national counterparts, the Minister of Police, and the Minister of State Security to urgently brief the Gauteng Provincial Legislature’s (GPL) portfolio Committee on Community Safety on the action that will be taken to quell the violence in Diepsloot.

We are greatly concerned that this violence will quickly escalate, and we will see similar scenes as we did in July last year.

The DA believes that there is a fine line between criminality and voicing your concern about undocumented foreign nationals.

While the country’s law must be respected and adhered to by all, we cannot have a situation where our residents take the law into their own hands and injure or kill innocent bystanders.

We condemn the mob justice that has taken place in Diepsloot over the last few days, but we urge our residents to come forward with any information about where they believe criminal activities are taking place.

This will allow the full might of the law to take its course. It is unacceptable that we now have a community like Diepsloot living in fear because of a few individuals who decided to take the law into their own hands.

The DA will be tabling questions in the GPL around the recent activities in Diepsloot as it is very concerning that this community took matters into their own hands shortly after the Minister of Police met with the community to discuss their concerns and deployed a heavy police contingent in Diepsloot.

Issued by Solly Msimanga, DA Gauteng Leader of the Opposition, 8 April 2022