Methodist church attack unfounded

By completely opening their hearts to desperate and neglected asylum seekers, the church and Bishop Verryn earned the love and respect of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people. In recent years, they have provided protection and shelter to thousands despite their limited resources. Without much preparation, they took on the needs of asylum seekers, needs that are a result of the government and NGOs failure to accommodate them. They did so with little preparation and no official mandate. Their ability to assist was stretched when the number of asylum seekers grew so quickly that even government departments failed to keep up, clearly adding pressure on the churchs management of the site.

Strained camp management

Even with the extra pressure, the church continued to shelter thousands, in effect literally saving lives. In refugee camps across the world, camp managements are staffed with fully trained individuals and well funded (by organisations such as the UNHCR), but even they fail to ensure complete safety and security at camps. There are numerous incidents of abuse, rape and even murder that occur in refugee camps across the world, for example, Dadaab in Kenya, but this does not mean the camp management whose core function is to manage camps has completely failed.

To completely discredit the church and the Bishop would be like calling South Africa a failed state because of its high incidence of crime. Despite recent claims of the church infringing on individuals right to freedom of movement, we have come across no asylum seeker who can substantiate this. To claim they disallowed people to move would be called kidnapping. These allegations are severe and must be considered character defamation unless substantiated, or indeed if they are true, the victims should lay criminal charges and allow the law to take its course.

Whatever the Bishops response to the allegations of abuse may have been, they were during very sensitive times, when the police were conducting violent raids, like the one on January 31, 2008; when the state was clashing with church management; or possibly during the terrible xenophobic violence of last year. He cannot be judged without one truly considering the situation in which he was and he should not be harshly criticised. It is widely recognised that he has devoted the past few years of his life to meet the needs of all the residents of the church. No one can justly accuse Bishop Verryn of not caring for asylum seekers.

If there were better shelters or accommodation available to the asylum seekers who sleep in the church, also taking location into account, we believe they would move. If a NGO or the government is able to offer better conditions and support, surely asylum seekers will move. In fact, we believe that it would come as a relief to the church. For those wise people who publicly question their integrity, please consider offering solid solutions instead of complaints. We support the Joburg Methodist Church and Bishop Verryn for their amazing work and hope that these scathing allegations do not discourage them from continuing their great work.