Lobby group to protest against ban on cigarettes
Lobby group Smokers Unite SA says its planning a peaceful nationwide demonstration on Wednesday against government’s continued ban on the sale of tobacco products.
Event organiser Linda Barnard says some 11 million smokers are being criminalised for their choice to smoke, while emerging data contradicts the assertion that smoking exacerbates Covid-19.
“We are planning a nationwide slow drive protest against the ban on cigarettes, but also to get our human rights back. We are planning this in eight different places in South Africa.
“We are wearing orange masks, because we feel that our right has been incarcerated by government and we are wearing it as a mask because we feel that our voices have been silenced.”
She says the insistence on the dropping of the ban speaks not only on freedom of choice but also to the thousands of jobs that could be lost in the tobacco sector.