National civic organisation Sanco has called on the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL Rights Commission) to ensure that churches are regulated.

This follows an incident in which three people died during a stampede at Shepherd Bushiri's Enlightened Christian Gathering church in Pretoria in December.

Bushiri earlier appeared before the commission on Monday to explain the deaths.

Sanco representative Abraham Mashishi told thecommission that there had been a public outcry following the incident.

"I was called when I was on holiday to say there was a public outcry and that the community was protesting," he said.

He called for the constitution to be amended to allow for churches to be covered by legislation.

"Malawian people are our brothers and sisters but nasty things are done by foreign churches," Mashishi said. "Churches are not legislated. They need to be licenced. You can't legislate a shebeen and not legislate a church."

He said if Bushiri's church had followed due processes, the stampede would not have  occurred.

Mashishi said Sanco had received complaints that there was a high level of noise coming from the church and that congregants were sleeping outside the building.

He said Sanco was informed that the bodies of the three dead people had been removed from the church and taken to a private mortuary.

"We are not fighting the church. We are fighting the manner in which the bodies were removed. The church tampered with the scene of the crime. Justice must take its course," Mashishi said.

Bushiri, however, earlier denied claims that the bodies had been removed from the church, saying the three people had died at a clinic.

"The church only came to know, through the media, that there was a case of bodies being moved from the church without the police and taken to the private mortuary," Bushiri said.

"We also further learnt that the police had, based on that, opened a case of defeating the ends of justice against the church," Bushiri added.

Mashishi said if the community wanted Bushiri to leave the country and his church closed down, Sanco would act on that call.

"If people say the church must be closed, we will follow that mandate."

He said the families of the dead church members must be compensated.

Bushiri earlier told the commission that his church was working on determining reasonable compensation for the families.

"The church is morally compelled to work on a compensation package that would help meet the responsibility gap left by those who died. The church has also commenced an insurance claim process against public liability insurance, to which we request support of the bereaved families," Bushiri said.

Bushiri, who was flanked by his wife Mary and his team, earlier appealed to the commission to involve his church in future engagements and not only summon them when there was an incident.

"We only come here when there is a problem. We would like to request the CRL to not only call us when there is an issue. It does not sit well with us that the CRL only calls us when there is an issue," Bushiri said.

During his presentation, Bushiri told the commission that his church had suffered constant victimisation.

"We have been victimised as a church, called all sorts of bad names and, sometimes, punished based on outright falsehoods advanced by faceless groups of people, mostly on social media," Bushiri said.

"We have seen the media telling the public that I once said that South Africans love our church because they believe in magic/miracles, unlike Malawians who believe in God.

"I have never said that. It is all lies. I challenge everybody out there, who has such a recording of me saying that, to come forward and face me," he added.