{"id":398159,"date":"2020-04-27T10:08:16","date_gmt":"2020-04-27T07:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/?p=398159"},"modified":"2020-04-27T10:08:16","modified_gmt":"2020-04-27T07:08:16","slug":"south-africa-apology-issued-over-anti-muslim-remarks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/south-africa-apology-issued-over-anti-muslim-remarks\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa: Apology issued over anti-Muslim remarks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>JOHANNESBURG(SONNA)-<\/strong>South Africa\u2019s Police Minister Bheki Cele apologized to the Muslim community Sunday for blasphemous remarks made by a police officer while arresting worshippers for breaching coronavirus lockdown rules.<\/p>\n<p>Cele\u2019s apology came hours after a video clip circulated on social media showing police officers arresting 24 worshipers in Mpumalanga province Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of the clip, one officer is heard asking the worshippers: &#8220;Are you bigger than the president? Is Muhammad bigger than the president?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>South Africans are currently observing a lockdown due to the novel coronavirus which was announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa on March 27.<\/p>\n<p>They are not allowed to leave their homes or congregate in churches or mosques.<\/p>\n<p>Police said the arrested worshippers contravened the COVID-19 Disaster Management Lockdown Regulations in relation to the prohibition of gatherings and will be charged or fined.<\/p>\n<p>National Police spokesman Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo said in a statement that the comments made by the officer are \u201crather unfortunate, and it is unacceptable that someone could make such an utterance.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n<p>He said the police management has directed that the matter be investigated and the person or persons who made the comment be identified and punished.<\/p>\n<p>South Africa has one of the highest numbers of COVID-19 infections on the continent with 4,546 confirmed cases and 87 deaths.<\/p>\n<p>Muslims make up about 3.5% of the country\u2019s population of 57 million. Despite their numbers, they actively participate in various sectors of the country\u2019s economy, including business, academia, civil service and politics.<\/p>\n<p>Source: AA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JOHANNESBURG(SONNA)-South Africa\u2019s Police Minister Bheki Cele apologized to the Muslim community Sunday for blasphemous remarks made by a police officer while arresting worshippers for breaching coronavirus lockdown rules. Cele\u2019s apology came hours after a video clip circulated on social media showing police officers arresting 24 worshipers in Mpumalanga province Saturday. At the end of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":398160,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-398159","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398159"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":398161,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398159\/revisions\/398161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}