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Johannesburg - Politicians have the right to criticise anyone without the fear of intimidation, EFF leader Julius Malema said on Tuesday.
"We have a right as politicians to critique any roleplayer in the media, in the economy, in politics, in society, in general, and no one should dare take away that right from us," Malema told thousands of EFF members who had marched with him from Newtown to the Constitutional Court in Braamfontein.
A large police contingent was present at the EFF's meeting point at the Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown, as well at the end point at the court. Barbed wire had been set up to make sure marchers did not enter the court's premises.
Ahead of the march to the court, Malema told supporters that people had sacrificed their lives for the right to express themselves.
"People have died for us to express ourselves freely without any fear. People have died for us to have a right to protest."
He said the march to the Constitutional Court would be a peaceful one, depending on how the police chose to handle the situation.
"We are not going to be harassed by police in protection of the Guptas and their friend Jacob Zuma."
According to the SABC, ANC Youth League President Collen Maine at the weekend told members at a rally in Soshanguve, north of Pretoria, that the Gupta family was going nowhere and the EFF should accept that.
"We must be careful of being defocus[ed]. The same people who marched to Absa and Barclays, a week later they were wined and dined in [the] UK," Maine reportedly said.
The Gupta family, via their company Oakbay Investments, was expected to file an urgent application on Tuesday afternoon on behalf of their shareholders, businesses and staff to interdict the EFF over "threats" that had been made.
Malema had made veiled threats to staff of Gupta-owned media outlets at a media conference last week, saying the safety of their journalists could not be guaranteed at EFF events.
He went further, saying that a call to action would see the Gupta family removed from the country.
The New Age and ANN7 editor-in-chief Moegsien Williams told News24 that the application aimed to interdict the EFF from making good on any threats to staff, property and shareholders of the Gupta-owned companies.
