The Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD) entourage had just arrived and were preparing to go inside the church to inspect adherence to the Covid-19 regulations. According to the video provided by the church, the pastor and congregants holding placards went outside the premises and knelt down in the middle of the street and prayed. It showed the police forcing their way inside. Shots were fired, people were injured and a camera was allegedly confiscated.
The pastor and some church members were arrested and taken to the Moroka police station. They were released on bail before midnight.
A statement from the JMPD said that “on their arrival, the officers were surrounded by a group of aggressive male churchgoers who thumped onto the JMPD patrol vehicles. Officers used pepper fog to disperse the group and called for backup.”
The church is in an industrial area in Midway, Soweto, and has residential houses on its buffer zone. Since its inception in 2010, residents have complained about the noise from the church.
“Officers have been constantly attending to noise complaints received from the surrounding community about the church. Since the national state of disaster was announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa and Disaster Management Act regulations were introduced, officers have also attended to complaints of noncompliance gatherings regulations,” said the JMPD’s Xolani Fihla.
The pastor’s husband, Professor Theophilus Mukhuba, accuses the City of Johannesburg of being disingenuous in allowing them to buy the land and approving their development plans and then adopting a resolution to terminate the consent.
“The City of Jo’burg are [sic] the engineers of this problem and instead of solving it, they use their power to effect bullying tactics against the church on the problem that they created,” he said.
Seven months after members of the Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD) stormed a Unity Fellowship Church gathering in Midway, Soweto, the case against the head preacher Mpfariseni Mukhuba is still ongoing.
Mukhuba, who has been charged with malicious damage to property, assault and contravening regulations of the Disaster Management Act, was due to make her seventh court appearance at the Protea Magistrates Court on Friday morning.
Irate churchgoers said the case was an assault on Christianity and demanded the court attend to the matter swiftly.
Officers reportedly used pepper fog to disperse the group and called for backup.
The spat between police, the City of Johannesburg and Unity Fellowship Church has been ongoing since 2010, with police saying they’ve had to deal with noise complaints from the surrounding area in the past.
But churchgoers have likened police’s reaction to the same brutality used against black people in the apartheid era.
They’re also upset that worship practices have been limited since the outbreak of Covid-19 because church gatherings exceeding 50 people are considered to be super-spreader events.
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