Police chief denies ‘ganja’ protest due to involvement of foreigners

The Ganja Users of Namibia (GUN) claim they have been denied their right to a peaceful protest by the police due to the involvement of foreign nationals.

In a letter seen by The Namibian, inspector general Joseph Shikongo highlighted the involvement of participants from South Africa and European countries as being potentially detrimental to the “sovereignty and integrity of Namibia, public order, decency or morality”.

The letter was dated 14 November and came in response to a request made by the GUN on 23 July this year.

Secretary general of the GUN Borro Ndungula expressed his disappointment in the response of the inspector general’s office.

“We are very disappointed to see the office of the IG is rejecting our request for a peaceful march purely because of involvement of people from South Africa and Europe,” he said, speaking to Desert Radio this week.

According to Ndungula, the GUN applied for a peaceful march to sensitise the public on the ongoing case at the Windhoek High Court where Ndungula and others are calling for the legalisation of marijuana.

He also explained that they invited participants from Europe and South Africa as their partners in their cause for the legal use of marijuana.

Ndungula expressed his confusion as to why international participants would be a thorny issue in their application.

“It’s also very disappointing because, as far as I know, there is no government directive that says people from Europe and people from South Africa are dangerous,” he noted.

He further told Desert Radio his association is not going to comply with Shikongo’s response to their application.

“They told me we can still re-apply but they will only approve it if there is no involvement of foreigners. We sat down and discussed our issues and we decided we are not going to comply to what he wants us to do.

“The response he has given to our request is very embarrassing. We do not want to involve the lawyers, we can do it man to man, he needs to apologise to our organisation, to South Africa through their high commission and to the European Union,” he added.

One of the invited participants is the president of the Rastafari United Front in Southern Africa, Tau Tau Haramanuba, who added that marijuana users always have their rights violated.

“We find that in the process of persecuting ganja users, there are a lot of civil, cultural and faith rights being violated and even in this case of Namibia,” he noted.

Namibian police spokesperson Kauna Shikwambi referred The Namibian to Shikongo, explaining she was on leave, while Shikongo did not respond to questions sent to him and did not answer his phone.