POLICE HARASS ACTIVIST GIRLFRIEND

Statement from the Swaziland Democracy Campaign

17 May 2011

BLOODY UNBELIEVABLE!!

At 2015hrs, this evening, Mary Pais Da Silva (Swaziland Democracy Campaign-Swaziland Chapter) received a phone call from a close friend of Bheki Dlamini (President of SWAYOCO currently incarcerated in jail on charges under the Suppression of Terrorism Act) informing her of the following:

The police have been harassing and intimidating the Bheki’s girlfriend.

She is now under threat of arrest for supposingly having knowledge of where Bheki has or had stashed the “bombs” that he used during the alleged bombing spree that he engaged in last year (2010) prior to his arrest.

As this statement is being prepared, there are reports that the police are on their way to her home to arrest her.

The only crime committed this young lady is being romantically involved with the President of a “proscribed entity”. Does this mean that pro-democracy activists are now not allowed to live a normal life? Does the Tinkhundla regime now want to dictate how we conduct our personal lives having failed to quell our fighting spirit in the struggle for democracy?

The SDC condemns this act of the police in the harshest terms and calls for the police to desist from the continued harassment of pro-democracy activists and their friends and family. We challenge to stop trying to use their divide and rule strategies: if they come for any one of our own, then they should come for all of us. We are ready to be housed in Mswati’s jail and fill them to the rafters.