Rabia Mayet | rabiamayet@radioislam.co.za

09 July 2026

2-minute read

The ‘biggest Anti-Crime March’ is being organised in the Eastern Cape for tomorrow, 10 July 2026.

Provincial Chairperson for the Eastern Cape, Yusuf Cassim said that with this region being both the murder capital and the rape capital of the country, the march has been “a long time coming.” The DA is planning to use all mechanisms available to ensure that the issue receives the response it deserves.

He mentioned that while the deployment of the military can stabilise the situation, it cannot fully solve the problem, stressing on the fact that criminals need to be caught and convicted. Additionally, mismanagement that is taking place within law enforcement agencies and the criminal justice system must be brought to a halt, so that criminals cannot continue with nefarious activities, which some of them do even when behind bars.

The DA’s efforts on this front include crime intelligence to influence the work done by SAPS to be “intelligence driven” with sufficient technology to ensure adequate surveillance for such initiatives.

Cassim pointed out that he, personally, has “driven this issue” by presenting memorandums to previous ministers to which he received no responses. Ian Cameron, the chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee of Police, was the only one who gave Cassim a platform to present on the crisis that the Eastern Cape is facing. The subsequent report was presented before the National Assembly and was then adopted. Following this ruling, the acting Minister of Police was compelled to implement the decisions by parliament, but he did not do so.

According to Cassim, this is what galvanised the DA to plan this anti-crime march. More than two and a half thousand South Africans have committed to join the march, which starts at Gelvin Park in Nelson Mandela Bay and ends at the 10111 Police Headquarters (and Army Base) in Schauderville.

Cassim indicated that they hope that the march will bring South Africans together and will spur the President on to take action against crime, and alongside military deployment, “fix all of the other aspects of the criminal justice system.”  The objective of the march is to focus the attention of the public and that of government, who, since the immigration issue, have shifted to forming crisis committees dedicated to deal with specific problems as they arise.

“When South Africans come out in their numbers in order to demand that there is action from government, when all of the parliamentary processes have been exhausted, motions have been tabled, questions have been asked, and government still remains deaf,” Cassim emphasized that there is no choice but to “dial up the pressure” on government to mark the crime issue as top priority.

Listen to the full interview with Ml Sulaimaan Ravat and Yusuf Cassim here.