A schoolteacher in Swaziland who was waiting for a bus was
detained by police because he was carrying a bag with an inscription of a trade
union federation on it.
Wandile Ndlela was approached by uniformed police
officers at the Satellite Bus Rank in Manzini, the main commercial city in the
kingdom, and accused of carrying a bag inscribed with TUCOSWA – the Trade Union
Congress of Swaziland.
TUCOSWA was recently deregistered by the Swazi Government
after it called for a boycott of national elections due to be held next year.
TUCOSWA is not a banned organisation in Swaziland where all political parties
are proscribed and King Mswati III rules as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute
monarch.
The Human Rights Centre, Swaziland, said in a statement
that police officers led Ndlela to the police post situated at the bus rank
where he was briefly detained, before being taken to regional police
headquarters in Manzini.
The statement added, ‘There he was interrogated by senior
police officers, who wanted to know where he had taken the bag from; and why it
had the TUCOSWA inscription.
‘When he tried to ask if he had done anything wrong, they
curtly told him that he knew that TUCOSWA was banned by the state, and he
should not be carrying the bag. After a lengthy interrogation he was released
without any formal charges being laid against him. Before releasing him, the
state police recorded his details, his place of residence and place of work and
gave him his bag back before warning him never to carry it.’
The Human Rights Centre said the case ‘illustrates the
level of police impunity in the violation of fundamental rights’ taking place
in Swaziland.
It added, ‘Despite the many cases of police violence and
brutality reported almost daily, there is no record of prosecution of any
police officer for human rights violations.’
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