‘Case of 5’ In October 2004, a victory against the state repression of activists was won when the 'Case of the 5' against Khayelitsha Anti-Eviction Campaign activists was withdrawn. The case started in September 2002, when two Mandela Park Anti-Eviction Campaign activists were arrested along with other striking workers at their (then) workplace at the Zandvliet Water Treatment Plant. This was part of a campaign of repression orchestrated by the police and major banks against the Anti-Eviction Campaign. The more than two years that this court case lasted makes it the longest-running political trial in recent South African history.1
- 1The tale of the Mandela Park evictions, relocations and the struggle against them is documented and examined in a report called ‘“But We Were Thousands”: Dispossession, resistance, repossession and repression in Mandela Park’, by Ashwin Desai & Richard Pithouse
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