The Durban High Court is set for a high-stakes legal showdown on Friday morning as KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi and Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia seek to make final an interim interdict against Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma and her anti-illegal immigration group, the March and March Movement.
Granted on Wednesday under Uniform Rule 6(12) for urgent applications, the interim order returns to court at 10:00 on Friday following weeks of violent protests in Durban that left a foreign national dead, 14 vehicles torched, and around a dozen shops looted or damaged.
Ahead of Friday’s hearing, the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) in KwaZulu-Natal has called on its supporters to gather outside the Durban High Court in solidarity with Ngobese-Zuma and her fellow leaders.
Police intelligence warns of plot to torch Home Affairs facility
In court papers, police warned of escalating tensions between March and March members, foreign nationals, and law enforcement officers, along with the threat of retaliatory violence following the murder of a Ugandan national during recent unrest.
In a founding affidavit, Brigadier Thamsanqa Gama revealed that police intelligence had uncovered an alleged plot to set fire to the Department of Home Affairs Refugee Reception Centre on Che Guevara Road (formerly Moore Road) in Berea.
Gama warned that the situation posed an immediate threat to lives, personal safety, and public order across Durban and the wider KwaZulu-Natal province.
During recent demonstrations in the Durban CBD, 14 vehicles were set alight and roughly a dozen shops were damaged. Police also opened a murder docket after a Ugandan man was assaulted and stabbed to death on Dr Pixley kaSeme Street.
KwaZulu-Natal police spokesperson Colonel Robert Netshiunda previously stated that two men had allegedly broken away from a group of marchers and approached the victim before several people attacked him.
Who is named—and what the police want banned
The urgent application lists the March and March Movement as the first respondent, alongside its leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma and five other individuals:
* Xolani Zuma
* Mthokozisi Gumede (also identified in court papers as Felimtwini)
* Nozibusiso Khambule
* Lindani Xulu
* Uyama Mthembu
The eThekwini Municipality, the executive head of the eThekwini Municipal Police Services, and the Minister of Home Affairs are also cited as respondents.
Mkhwanazi and Cachalia are asking the court to prohibit the movement and its named leaders from convening, organising, directing, mobilising, or participating in marches, processions, protest convoys, and encampments across specified areas of eThekwini—specifically targeting the Durban CBD, Che Guevara Road, and the precinct surrounding the Home Affairs Refugee Reception Centre.
The interdict further seeks to outlaw:
* Violence, intimidation, assault, and harassment aimed at residents, business owners, traders, employees, delivery drivers, motorists, and public officials
* Looting, arson, and damage to homes, vehicles, commercial stock, business premises, and public buildings
* Any attempt to attack or set alight the Home Affairs Refugee Reception Centre
* Forcing businesses to close, disrupting deliveries, compelling people to abandon their premises, or blocking building entrances and exits.
Tensions outside the Refugee Reception Centre
March and March has spent weeks campaigning for stricter enforcement of South Africa’s immigration laws, focusing heavily on the Berea Refugee Reception Centre.
Tensions flared after a Constitutional Court ruling regarding access to the asylum system for individuals who entered the country irregularly or failed to apply within prescribed timeframes. Following the judgment, Home Affairs introduced measures allowing people who present themselves at refugee reception offices and express an intent to apply for asylum to have their applications received—a move the department acknowledged had led to increased demand and capacity constraints.
On 6 October, protesters blocked access to the Berea centre, disrupting services while asylum seekers, including women and children, waited outside. Demonstrations escalated in the days that followed.
On Tuesday this week, members marched from the refugee reception centre to the Berea Police Station to hand over a memorandum demanding stronger policing, transparent recruitment practices, improved economic opportunities for South Africans, stricter immigration enforcement, and regulation of e-hailing services.
“Abusing power to strip us of our democratic right”
Ngobese-Zuma confirmed that the movement's leadership will attend Friday’s court proceedings, vowing that the government will not silence them.
In a social media statement on Wednesday, she accused President Cyril Ramaphosa and the police ministry of abusing state power to crush dissent.
“Support us against the minister of police and the president that are abusing power and using the courts to strip us of our democratic right to protest in a democratic country,” Ngobese-Zuma said.
March and March national spokesperson Sandile Dube also slammed the court action, calling it a calculated attempt to silence public grievances just days before the 4 November local government elections.
MK Party rallies behind March and March
In a statement issued on Thursday, MKP provincial elections spokesperson Mkhuseli Mlengane announced that the party would stand in solidarity with the March and March leadership at the Durban High Court on Friday, while urging members to demonstrate peacefully and within the law.
“The legal proceedings have raised serious concerns about the exercise of citizens' constitutional right to assemble, demonstrate and express their grievances peacefully. MKP maintains that the right to protest is a fundamental democratic freedom that must be protected, not undermined,” Mlengane said.
Critiquing what it called an “increasingly heavy-handed response” by President Ramaphosa’s administration—including the deployment of police and soldiers to public demonstrations—the party questioned the state's spending on heavy security deployments rather than fighting crime and managing unlawful immigration.
“The government must not treat citizens exercising their constitutional rights as enemies. Instead, it must engage communities, listen to their concerns and address the underlying issues that bring people onto the streets,” the statement read.
“The struggle for constitutional rights, dignity and accountability must never be criminalised. The uMkhonto weSizwe Party stands with the people and defends their right to be heard.”