Today thousands of protesters marched on Jan Smuts Avenue, one of Johannesburg’s busiest routes from zoo lake and later arrived at Goodman Gallery in the afternoon to protest against the controversial spear painting by the notorious artist Brett Murray, The work of art depicts President Jacob Zuma with his genitals exposed. Buti Manamela told the people who were standing outside the gallery that “The movement has always promoted freedom of expression, but you cannot denigrate important figures”. Gwede Mantashe and Blade Nzimande left the crowd for some time to go inside the gallery to hand over a memorandum which requested the gallery to take down the painting from their website and when they came out to address the crowd they announced that the Goodman Gallery has removed an image of “The Spear” from their website. The ANC also used this opportunity to officially end the boycotts of the City Press newspaper.
