DISMISSAL OF STRIKERS

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26887, 13 November 1952, Page 9

DISMISSAL OF STRIKERS

Protest In Port Elizabeth

(Rec. 8 p.m.) CAPE TOWN, Nov. 11 New disturbances threatened in Port Elizabeth today when 600 Africans gathered outside the municipal depot protesting against their dismissal yesterday. Police rushed to the scene in troop-car-riers and the crowd dispersed.

The men were dismissed after they had struck in answer to the call of the African National Congress for a one-day strike as a protest against the City Council’s curfew and ban on nonreligious meetings.

In Johannesburg tonight, a statement by the congress and the South African Indian Congress demanded that the Minister of Justice (Mr C. R. Swart) withdraw his orders to the police to shoot demonstrators. Failure to withdraw the order would give further reasons to believe the disturbances were deliberately incited by the Government to create panic among Europeans and so drive them into the arms of the Nationalists, weaken the defiance campaign and ruthlessly oppress non-Europeans, the statement said. Mr Swart, who visited East London and Kimberley today, said riots by Africans there and at Port Elizabeth followed the same pattern, and were a projection of the Mau Mau terrorism in Kenya. They were simply antiwhite. People of all races must have respect for "the police, and must obey the law.