‘Free your face’ campaign launched
The Institute of Race Relations has launched a citizens' petition as part of its campaign to fight the mask mandate under the National Health Act
Opposing the government’s attempt to ‘force masks onto South African faces indefinitely’, the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) has launched its Free your face campaign.
The campaign has been launched in the form of a citizens’ petition, a public awareness campaign, and legal correspondence with government officials to galvanise opposition.
ALSO READ: Cansa highlights cancer sufferers human rights
The IRR is of the view that mask mandates will be ‘radically transformed from a limited emergency measure into the permanent masking of South
African public life, with an ongoing exception for politicians making speeches, if regulations promulgated by Health Minister Joe Phaahla take effect mid-April’.
In a statement released on Thursday, the institute says Cogta Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has come to the realisation that, after ‘significant civil society pressure’, emergency measures cannot be justified by Covid-19, and this week promulgated regulations to end the national State of Disaster.
‘But now that the government has admitted South Africa is no longer in a state of disaster as a result of Covid-19, various emergency measures like the mask mandate are poised to become permanent under the National Health Act (NHA),’ said IRR head of campaigns Gabriel Crouse.
Specifically, Minister Phaahla’s proposed regulations under the NHA state:
• ’16A (1) In order to contain the spread of notifiable medical conditions listed in Annexure A, Tables 1, 2, and 3, which notifiable medical conditions may be spread through droplets or aerosol, the containment measures stipulated in subregulations (2) to (8) must be adhered to
• (2) A person must, when in a gathering in an indoor public place, wear a face mask or a homemade item that covers his or her nose and mouth
• (3) No person may be allowed to use any form of public transport, or to enter a public premises [sic], if they do not wear a face mask or a homemade item that covers the nose and mouth when in an indoor pubic place.’
Covid-19 is listed as a category 1 notifiable medical condition, meaning as long as it circulates among the population, mask-wearing will be enforced.
‘Since January 2021 as noted in Nature, one of the world’s most prominent scientific journals, the scientific consensus has been that Covid-19 will stick around and that zero-Covid is nothing but a ‘beautiful dream’,’ said Crouse.
TB, acute rheumatic fever, and various respiratory illnesses, including ‘novel influenza A virus’, are all listed as notifiable medical conditions.
‘As long as any of these remain in circulation, the mask mandate that ‘no person may be allowed’ to enter ‘public premises’ if they do not cover their faces, will remain in place,’ concluded Crouse.
For more information, visit the IRR website.
Like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter.
For news straight to your phone invite us:
WhatsApp – 060 784 2695
Instagram – zululand_observ
