SA HIV group wants Ncandweni banned

MBABANE – About a year after Lubulini MP Timothy Myeni made controversial statements about HIV and branding, those words have come back to haunt him.

Despite withdrawing and apologising for suggesting that people should be branded their HIV positive status on their buttocks last year in May, the anger over those statements resuscitated after an audio tape allegedly of Myeni recently making similar remarks during a church service in South Africa surfaced.

This prompted about 100 protesters under the National Association of People Living with HIV and AIDS to take to the streets and demand the closure of the Ncandweni Christ Ambassadors offices in Johannesburg.
The protest action is said to have started at about 11.30am.
Myeni is the lead singer of the multi-award winning gospel group that has a huge following in the Southern African region.

Yesterday news broadcasts in and around SA carried the scenes of the protesters carrying placards outside Ncandweni offices.
The protest later resulted in the ‘arrest’ of the Secretary General of NAPWA for allegedly being part of an illegal gathering as well as causing a violent action.
In an interview with the Times yesterday evening, NAPWA National Advocacy Coordinator Mluleki Zazini said they were still outside the police station at about 8.30pm hoping for the release of their colleague.

 
“We are angry over the statements were heard on the audio tape and we want Myeni and his group out of SA. We have the audio tape from one of our members. We will call all the stores and radio stations to stop selling and playing his music. We are also going to call that the Home Affairs just ban Myeni from coming to SA by withdrawing his permit. Those statements about branding are humiliating to people with HIV,” he alleged.

He said they were denied entry to the offices as a group but four of them were allowed in. “We met someone who said he was Sabelo and he said this was a misunderstanding. We are not convinced and we just want them to close down,” he said.

He said the arrival of the police came after they tried several attempts to enter the office but failed.
Attempts to get a comment from Myeni proved futile last night as his number was not available on MTN.
However, SABC television reports stated that they were informed that Ncandweni preferred not to comment on the whole issue.