- The Liberty Fighters Network says people shouldn’t rely on the government’s Covid-19 figures.
- The group threatened to approach the courts after President Cyril Ramaphosa’s address on Sunday night.
- LFN also accused the government of not caring about the elderly.
The Liberty Fighters Network (LFN) says the Covid-19 figures provided by the government cannot be trusted.
The organisation’s president Reyno de Beer said: “The Covid-19 figures provided to the people can’t be trusted at all and after LFN was faced with a complaint over the past weekend in Johannesburg, where a person was shot 10 times and killed on 27 February 2020 already before the first case of the coronavirus was even reported in SA, where the body of the deceased is now considered as a Covid-19 case, according to the funeral undertaker.
“We realised that the people can’t rely on the Covid-19 cases. This is only one of several suspicious Covid-19 mortality cases reported to LFN”.
Also, in a statement on Monday, the group threatened to approach the courts this week, following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s address on the Alert Level 3 restrictions.
“Our government now has gone one step further to resist us, by making the wearing of masks compulsory [and] punishable with arrest and criminal prosecution after we have actively advocated that it was not a criminal offence not to wear one.
“The wearing of masks has been an international topic of controversy as many medical experts highlighted the negative health effects in wearing one and also the belief that it is not preventing or combating the rate of detection of the coronavirus causing Covid-19, which probably had been around with us for many years already”.
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In June, LFN took on the government and won a court case, which declared various regulations governing Level 3 and 4 of the nationwide lockdown as unconstitutional and invalid.
The group also claimed victory after Gauteng High Court Judge Norman Davis only allowed Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to appeal the blanket declaration of invalidity he made when he set aside lockdown regulations, News24 reported.
Davis granted Dlamini-Zuma leave to appeal on the basis of her argument that his main judgment gives a “blanket” declaration of invalidity.
In the main judgment, the high court judge slammed a number of the regulations, saying that, besides the specific ones cited, “there are many more instances of sheer irrationality included therein”.
Davis gave Dlamini-Zuma 10 business days in which to correct the irrational regulations.
However, LFN said it would approach the courts this week to ensure that the court order becomes immediately operational and enforceable.
“LFN will also lodge an application to cross appeal based on the fact that the court did not declare the National State of Disaster as unconstitutional and invalid too,” De Beer said.
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De Beer said the government had confirmed that it does not “care” about the elderly citizens, who had been without visitors since the start of the lockdown.
He also said although the group does not advocate for the use of alcohol, the country’s health system had always managed to cope with its effects.
He added they were also concerned about the high unemployment the liquor industry would face, and “the threat of several of those businesses to close its doors”.
