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Community activist Thokozile Nkosi dragged to court over mining impacts resistance
Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, 30 October 2025. Community activist Thokozile Nkosi from Newcastle will appear at the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Friday 31 October 2025. Nkosi is a member of Sukumani Environmental Justice, a community organisation at the forefront of confronting and resisting the negative impacts of mining operations in the Newcastle area.
The case, which was filed by MSI Empire Group-Gardinial Coal (PTY) LTD, names Nkosi as the first respondent, and community members associated with Nkosi’s group as the second respondents. Other respondents include the provincial commissioner, the district commissioner, and the station commander of SAPS.
The court action comes after the mining company sought an urgent interdict to prevent community members from staging a protest on the 1st of September 2025. The community representatives issued the required notice to the relevant authorities, attended the Section 4 meeting, and were granted approval to proceed with the gathering.
The community protest was a result of failed attempts by the community to engage the mine, despite numerous unsuccessful efforts to raise issues around mining operations affecting their livelihoods and environment. The community exercised their right to protest on 1 September 2025 prompting the company to retaliate with a court interdict.
Activists and community members view this as another form of intimidation, often referred to as SLAPP suits (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation), aimed at instilling a sense of fear and frustration in activists. Mining conglomerates increasingly weaponise the law to intimidate and silence environmental justice activists and mining-affected communities.
“The growing use of the courts to silence legitimate dissent is deeply concerning,” said Sifiso Dladla, Human Rights Defenders Campaigner at groundWork. “We have seen before how such legal actions escalate into harassment, intimidation, and even assassinations of environmental justice activists like Fikile Ntshangase and Sikhosiphi ‘Bazooka’ Rhadebe of the Amadiba Crisis Committee.”
Last week, The Life After Coal Campaign, a joint campaign by the Centre for Environmental Rights (CER), Earthlife Africa, and groundWork hosted a Human Rights Defenders People’s Hearing in Johannesburg where activists from Nkosi’s community in Newcastle shared their personal stories on the intimidation, violence, and suffering they continue to endure due to mining resistance in their community. The event, which took place on Wednesday 22 October 2025, also marked exactly five years since the brutal murder of activist Fikile Ntshangase, who fearlessly fought mining in the Somkhele area north of KwaZulu-Natal.
For Media Enquiries
Tsepang Molefe – groundWork – Media Campaigner
+27744051257
or
Jabulani Sithole – Life After Coal – Communications Coordinator
+27660835270
