Students protest about a musician being let out of jail!?
March 20th, 2010 at 10:17am
I had to do a double-take when I heard this one. It seems that the bacon is airborne and a highly contagious bout of sanity has broken out in South Africa. Students are protesting about a musician being let out of jail…yes, you read that correctly, they’re protesting about a musician being let out, not being locked up, but being let out.
Students in South Africa have thrown stones at police and a court where a musician accused of killing four school pupils in a car race was freed on bail.
Police fired water canon at some 2,000 protesters. Some threatened to burn the Soweto home of hip-hop performer Molemo Maarohanye, known as Jub Jub.
There were similar clashes at his initial court appearance on Wednesday, when police fired rubber bullets.
The judge said Jub Jub and his co-accused should move during the trial.
In granting bail of 10,000 rand ([USD]$1,360; £900), judge Andre Auret said he was aware that the safety of Jub Jub and fellow accused Themba Tshabalala was at risk.
“[But] I am convinced they have means to protect themselves in various ways – to name only one, they could resettle somewhere else until the case is finalised,” he said.
Apparently the members of the judicial system have some sort of natural resistance to this particular strain of sanity. I always thought that the judicial system was supposed to protect people, even those who have been accused of crimes…how this protects anyone, accused or protesters, is beyond me.
I also fail to see how a 900 pound bail is going to act as a deterrent to a wealthy musician to skip the country…but if I keep trying to apply logic to the decisions of the South African justice system, I’ll just make my headache worse.
Samuel
Entry Filed under: Bizarreness
