Bhudu outside Pretoria High Court for Oscar sentencing

The morning of paralympian Oscar Pistorius’s sentencing, prisoner rights activist Golden Miles Bhudu stood outside the court with chains shackled to his waist, wrists, and ankles. He stood in the closed-off lane in the street and journalists shouted questions at him to make themselves heard above the traffic.

He wore an orange t-shirt with the words “DOC [Department of correctional services] prison work force” printed on the back.

“Why are certain offenders more equal than others,” was written on one of the two placards he held.

“They say Oscar cries like a baby, screams like a woman, and shoots like a soldier,” Bhudu said.

An ambulance with red lights flashing, pulled up outside the court shortly before 8am. A police nyala was also parked outside the court.

A cameraman wearing a broad-brimmed hat perched on top of the bus shelter outside the court

About 50 journalists, camera people and photographers were waiting, smoking, jabbering above the roar of the passing buses and the hooting minibuses.

An Australian TV journalist, his long-distance runner’s body poured into a crisp navy suit, strolled into the road, microphone in hand and cameraman in tow, to speak to Bhudu.

A cyclist in a yellow top stopped and looked at the crowd for a moment before moving on.

On September 12, Pistorius was convicted of culpable homicide for the Valentine’s Day 2013 shooting of Steenkamp.

The court also found him not guilty of murdering her. Pistorius was also found guilty of firing a shot from his friend Darren Fresco’s Glock pistol under a table at Tasha’s restaurant in Johannesburg in January 2013.

He was found not guilty of shooting through the open sunroof of a car in Modderfontein on September 30, 2012, and of illegal possession of ammunition.

– Sapa