MEDIA STATEMENT BY AL JAMA-AH
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: 8 May 2026
Al Jama-Ah Condemns The Heavy-Handed Treatment Of Hon. Fadiel Adams
Al Jama-ah stands with NCC’s Honourable Fadiel Adams and notes with serious concern the manner in which this matter has unfolded.
While South Africa’s legal process must take its course, there can be no justification for treatment that appears excessive, degrading, and designed to punish before any court has made a finding. In a constitutional democracy, allegations must be tested in court and not converted into public humiliation through spectacle, intimidation, or unnecessarily forceful state action.
South Africans are painfully familiar with the use of state power in a manner that seeks to break a person before justice has taken its course. The treatment of Hon. Adams evokes troubling memories of apartheid-era methods, where force and public degradation were used to instil fear and assert power. We do not invoke that history lightly. We do so because democracy requires restraint, dignity, and fairness from all institutions exercising public power.
We are also mindful of the emotional toll that this ordeal places on his family, who are forced to endure the public trauma that accompanies such treatment.
Al Jama-ah throws-out trial by media, rejects any attempt to portray allegations as proof, and rubbishes any abuse of process that undermines the presumption of innocence. While the party stresses that the law must be allowed to take its course properly, fairly, and without vindictiveness, it also raises questions: Are there (right- wing) forces at play to undermine our democratic dispensation and abusing the legal system? Could Hon. Adams’ cases not have been handled differently? Why has he – like EFF’s Hon Julius Malema – been targeted now that the country is on its way to participate in its crucial local government elections? And what are the reasons for party leaders being dragged to court (and jail) over matters that could have been dealt in a respectful manner?
This country did not overcome apartheid so that democratic institutions could act in ways that remind our people of its harshest features. Justice must never become a tool of humiliation. It must remain anchored in fairness, proportionality, and respect for human dignity.
Issued by:
Faried Achmat
Al Jama-ah Secretary General