Hertta-Maria Amutenja
The five children of the liberation struggle who were arrested earlier this week for allegedly blocking the entrance of the Ministry of Defence and Veterans Affairs were denied bail today when they made their first court appearance.
The suspects, John Amadhila, Johaness Kamati, Bernarhd Ngifenwa (46), and Elisabeth Shityeni (37) and Immanuel Paulus (41) appeared today in the Windhoek Magistrate’s court and were denied bail.
They, on Monday blocked and prevented anyone from entering or leaving the building.
Today, a crowd of other exile kids stood outside the court room, and pleaded for the release of their colleagues.
Speaking to Windhok Observer, the struggle kids are claiming they were peaceful protestors and were merely requesting their petition to be addressed. They were demanding that they be registered under the Defence Ministry and not the Ministry of youth.
“We just want them to release our colleagues because they even arrested them on no evidence. We did not break anyone’s things, we didn’t fight with anyone neither did we take things that did not belong to us. We are only fighting for one thing which is for the Ministry to come and free us and address us accordingly. We just want the minister to come and talk to us and tell us something regarding our registration under the ministry. We have been requesting this for a long time but to this day they have not come to address us. The police has seen how many times we have been approaching the government on this issue so the least they could have done was at to get the minster to talk to us but they only have the strength to come and threaten, fight and arrest us for no reason,” the group said.
According to the group, the police arrested them to show their authority.
“They took the decision to beat us with heavy leather whips and arrest us to show that they are stronger than us,” they said.
Acting Khomas Regional Commander Commissioner Chrispin Mubebo said that the suspects’ case was postponed to next month.
“They appeared today in court and i understand they were refused bail and the case has been postponed to the 13 of March 2023,” he said.
