The Economic Freedom Fighters' national shutdown has come and gone but some of the participating protesters remain behind bars. The EFF is frustrated and has lashed out at law enforcement for refusing to grant bail to its members who were arrested from the early hours of Monday morning. The National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure (Natjoints) reported more than 550 arrests that were affected during the shutdown in different parts of the country. EFF Gauteng Chairperson Nkululeko Dunga said the arrests were aimed at frustrating and intimidating innocent citizens. 

INFRINGING ON PROTESTORS RIGHTS 

Dunga said that the government has now sunk into a state of deceit and lawlessness as it infringes on the rights of citizens to demonstrate as enshrined in Section 17 of the Constitution. "After much deployment of police for the protests, it is now apparent that they were sent to provoke and arrest innocent demonstrators in order to justify the wasteful expenditure of R166m in deploying the army and reserve police," Dunga said.

ABUSE OF POWER

 The party went on to accuse the government of abusing power by arresting ?peaceful' demonstrators. "This is an abuse of power by the state in an attempt to further intimidate citizens from holding the government accountable through demonstrations," Dunga said. He said as the EFF, they call upon Bheki Cele and Ronald Lamola as ministers of police, and justice and correctional services respectively, and provincial commissioner Elias Mawela to immediately release the protesters. The EFF Gauteng will be engaging on pickets at the police stations and courts in demand of the release of the peaceful demonstrators.

PROTESTORS ARRESTS 

Natjoints said on Monday night that they arrested more than 550 protesters and charged with public violence, intimidation, damage to infrastructure, theft, and attempted looting. Gauteng had most arrest with 149 protesters arrested.