Africa-Press – South-Africa. Seventeen people appeared in the Ladysmith Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday on public violence charges that stem from a protest in Van Reenen, KwaZulu-Natal, over the weekend.
It is alleged that the five women and 12 men, aged 20 to 47, blocked the N3 highway in both directions at Van Reenen’s Pass on Sunday morning as they demanded that police release a male detainee to them.
KwaZulu-Natal police spokesperson, Colonel Robert Netshiunda, said officers arrested the man earlier in the day in connection with a murder in the area.
“Angry community members stormed the local police station and demanded that the suspect should be handed to them, possibly for the reasons of mob justice,” he added.
When the crowd was dispersed from the police station, they used burning tyres, stones and other rubble to blockade the highway, “causing a traffic jam, before police successfully cleared the road later”.
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