Cii News | 03 October 2012

A campaign has been launched calling for the boycott of Clicks cosmetics stores in South Africa by Muslim consumers after a student from Darul Uloom Zakarriya was allegedly wrongfully accused of stealing a frying pan.

Moulana Zaheer Wadee, the campaign organiser, told Cii that the 5th year student from Malaysia, Hassan Basri, went to a Clicks store at the Trade Route Mall in Lenasia and purchased a frying pan on Sunday, 16 September 2012.

Basri is a student at the Darul Uloom or Islamic seminary for higher learning in Zakariyya Park, south of Johannesburg, where he hopes to qualify as an Islamic scholar.

Before he left the store he paid for the item and then asked a security guard to check the pan for him.

To his surprise he found the pan to be used and dirty.

Pic: Supplied

The security guard then accused Basri of bringing an old pan into the store and attempting to swop it.

“He told the security, look what’s happening here? The security then tells him that look you brought one from outside and you came to swop it here. Remember he (Basri) purchased it and he has a till slip to prove it and he hasn’t left the store as yet [sic],” said Ml. Wadee explaining the sequence of events.

The pan was valued at R299 or $36.

Pic: Supplied

Basri was then taken to a back room where he was allegedly forced to write out a confession to the incident. He initially refused to agree to a statement admitting that he had stolen the frying pan or had done anything untoward.

Ml. Wadee said that Basri was then told that he would be allowed to leave if he wrote out the document. “Under duress he wrote his name. He then asked them what to write because he can’t speak, read or write English. They spelt out word for word to him what he must write down.”

Basri apparently wrote down that he brought a frying pan from outside into the store. “After he wrote it down everyone started laughing at him and they told him now you are definitely going to jail,” explained Ml Wadee.

Police were then called in and Basri was arrested. He was released on R500 bail and appeared in court the following day where the case was thrown out of court by the Prosecutor.

Legal representatives have now taken up the case and have reportedly written to Clicks. “We are asking the Muslim community to please stand with us and if Muslims can all unite we can make it known that Muslims do mean a lot.”

Susann Caminada, a Clicks spokesperson said, “We are aware of the incident. We take it very seriously and we a busy investigating the matter.”