“Teeger, how many doctors did your friends kill today?” - a protestor outside Newlands
Telford Vice / Newlands
DAVID Teeger’s retention as South Africa’s men’s under-19 captain sparked protests outside and inside Newlands on Wednesday at the second Test between South Africa and India.
The group of about 20 protestors, most of them gathered across the road from the ground’s ticket booths, were members of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. They waved Palestinian flags and carried signs reading “Boycott Apartheid Israel” and “Smash Apartheid Israhell [sic] for a 6!!”, and shouted slogans including, “Teeger, how many doctors did your friends kill today?”
Last month an independent investigation called by CSA cleared Teeger of breaching CSA’s code for dedicating an award he won to “the state of Israel and to every single soldier fighting so that we can live and thrive in the diaspora”. Teeger said this on October 22, when the death toll in Israel’s asymmetric war on Gaza rose to 4,651.
More than 22,000 deaths, many of them those of civilians, have since been recorded. The ongoing bombardment is in retribution for the 1,139 Israelis killed, and more than 200 others taken hostage, in a Hamas terrorist attack on October 7.
Police cleared the demonstrators away from their chosen spot about an hour before the 10am start of play. Lieutenant colonel Marnus Fourie of the South African police told Cricbuzz they were moved several hundred metres to the ground’s designated protest zone, outside another gate, because they had been in an area that could have been taken up by queueing spectators. Another factor in deciding to move the demonstrators, Fourie said, was avoiding potential clashes with pro-Israel groups, which had happened at the switching on of cape Town’s Christmas lights last year.
Inside the ground, a small group of spectators seated beyond the boundary at the Kelvin Grove End displayed Palestinian flags well after the start of the match.
More protests are possible when Teeger leads South Africa in the under-19 World Cup, which starts on January 19 when the home side play West Indies in Potchefstroom.
Cricbuzz
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