Cape Town - Three anti-gender-based violence activists, upset at radio station Heart 104.9’s alleged abuses against its staff, said they would not move from outside a retailer’s head office until it stops its support of the station.
The trio have been standing outside the Clicks head office in Woodstock, demanding that the retailer accept a list of demands.
The action commenced on Monday morning when Reverend June Dolley-Major, Celesthea Pierang and Felicity Roland gathered to hand over a memorandum in protest against the retailer’s relationship with Heart 104.9 FM.
This in light of recent sexual harassment allegations and alleged bullying and intimidation by a senior station manager.
“We had a protest outside of Heart FM not too long ago requesting Heart FM to dismiss the person who is responsible for this, the one who is being accused of sexual harassment, who is also the one who bullied Clarence Ford.
“And he, of course, continues to work and so we decided to protest outside Clicks because it is one of their funders. They advertise through them and so kind of hit them where it hurts the most – their pockets,” Dolley-Major said.
The three rape survivors said their memorandum was not accepted and they planned to remain overnight. Police were on scene but left thereafter.
Clicks head of marketing Dr Melanie van Rooy said: “This is not a Clicks issue. We welcome the right to peaceful protest, but we will not tolerate intimidation of staff or disruption of operations.
“Unfortunately, we have had to call in the SAPS to remove the protesters as they were disrupting access to our premises and presenting a real risk to the safety of our employees and visitors.”
Van Rooy said Clicks had no current marketing campaigns on Heart FM, and that the protesters were not willing to hand over the memorandum to a designated senior staff member.
Dolley-Major said this was a blatant lie.
Heart FM issued a response on the allegations in December and said its position had not changed since.
Heart FM station manager Renee Redelinghuys said: “With respect to claims of sexual harassment, when the internal grievance complaint was raised our response was immediate as we view such allegations extremely seriously.
“Our internal and external independent investigations could not be concluded because no evidence was ever provided to support the claims.”
The station also said the non-disclosure agreement related to three separate disciplinary charges against the employee by the station and was requested by the employee.