Bredasdorp - A group of people marched through the Western Cape town of Bredasdorp on Tuesday morning to express their outrage at the alleged rape and murder of teenager Anene Booysen.
They started where Booysen's body was found and ended in front of the Bredasdorp Magistrate's Court, where two of her alleged killers were expected to appear on Tuesday.
Joining the march were residents and singing members of the provincial African National Congress Youth League and the Democratic Alliance, who wore their party shirts and held a large banner.
A group of about 100 men, women and children picketed outside the court, holding signs with slogans like “Your child is my child”, “Dubbele lewenslange straf” (Double life sentences) and “Sluit hulle toe, gooi weg die sleutels” (Lock them up, throw away the keys).
Booysen, 17 was allegedly gang-raped and disembowelled after visiting a club on Friday, February 1. She was found at the Asla Magwebu construction site, where she worked, not far from her RDP home, the next morning. She died in hospital that night.
Speaker of the Cape Agulhas local municipality, Eve Marthinus, handed a memorandum of demands from the “torn community” to the court's manager, to give to the “provincial minister of justice and police”.
In the memorandum they call for stricter criminal sentences, an end to all types of violence and for the innocent to be protected from sexual predators, drug dealers, and irresponsible alcohol traders. - Sapa