Another victory was scored for the Palestine BDS movement this morning as the Western Cape High Court declared that the City of Cape Town's restriction of the upcoming #PharrellProtest to 150 people was unconstitutional and therefore invalid. The City of Cape Town was ordered to pay for legal costs.

Pharrell Williams, Woolworths, Grand West Casino and the City of Cape Town have tried all they could in the last few weeks to limit and prevent protest action during the upcoming Pharrell Williams Woolworths tour and in particular the concert taking place on Monday 21 September in Cape Town at Grand West Casino at 3pm.

This is a good day for the BDS movement, Palestine solidarity and for the hard-won freedoms that our fathers and mothers fought for. Freedom of expression, the right to assembly and the right to protest are rights of us South Africans that Woolworths, Grand West Casino, the City of Cape Town and Pharrell Williams cannot play with.

Today’s court victory against the City of Cape Town (together with Grand West Casino's withdrawing of its own court application on Thursday also against the #PharrellProtest actions) now means that its full-steam ahead for Monday’s #PharrellProtest. 

Pharrell Williams is due to encounter “the largest protest any artist would have faced since the end of Apartheid”. South Africans are well known for their support of the Palestinian people and boycott of Israel with Nelson Mandela famously stating that: "our freedom is incomplete withouth the freedom of the Palestinians".

 

On Monday at Grand West Casino, human rights and Palestine solidarity activists will be protesting against Pharrell Williams’ collaboration with Woolworths and its trade with Israel. The protest forms part of the now year-long #BoycottWoolworths campaign calling on the company (that Williams is in collaboration with) to end its relations with Israel.