As passing cars hooted in support, around 80 protestors along the busy Pretorius Street held up signs demanding justice for LGBTI people.
Many participants then proceeded to another nearby picket convened by the DA at the SAPS offices in Sunnyside.
“With these protests, we are saying enough is enough,” Lerato Phalakatshela, Hate Crime Manager at OUT, told the crowd.
“We need the police to give our cases more attention; we need the police to stop ridiculing us when we report these cases in police stations. We are tired of secondary victimisation, we are tired of not being seen as important people.”
Phalakatshela insisted: “We are not secondary citizens! We are important like every other South African.”
He added: “The aim of these protests is to show the police and everyone in the country that LGBTI people are people… To ask the police to hear us because a lot of people are being killed – a lot of women, a lot of women who are lesbian – so these are vulnerable groups that need to be given more attention and need to be protected.”
To see more pictures from the protests, click here for the Facebook gallery.