Despite the efforts of King Mswati III of Swaziland, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, and Barnabas Dlamini, the man he illegally appointed Prime Minister, to stop foreign journalists covering last week’s protest marches in the kingdom, news of human rights violations have circled the globe.
Among the reports published and broadcast is this one from Canada. The CBC Radio programme As it Happens featured Swaziland in its edition on Wednesday (15 September 2010).
This is how CBC described the item, ‘Tensions are rising in Sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarchy.
‘Swaziland's Prime Minister, Barnabas Dlamini, has threatened to torture pro-democracy activists in the country -- and he says that would include foreigners who “meddled” in affairs that were not of their concern. Last week, the landlocked Southern African kingdom arbitrarily arrested fifty pro-democracy demonstrators, including lawyers, journalists and trade union members. And representatives of the Congress of South African Trade Unions who supported the demonstrators were forcibly ejected from the country. They've since claimed they were the victims of police harassment and intimidation.
Zanele Matebula [of the Congress of South African Trade Unions] was one of those deported. We reached her at her home in Johannesburg, South Africa.’
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