A 15-year-old boy was tortured by police in Swaziland
after his mother reported him for stealing E85 (US$6). The boy said he was
beaten with a metal blade and a club for five hours.
The case was just one of many reported to a United
Nations review panel looking into human rights in Swaziland, where King Mswati
III rules as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.
A joint report by four organisations working to
improve human rights stated, ‘In Mbabane [the Swazi capital], police tortured a
15-year-old boy after his mother had reported him for stealing E85.00. The boy
alleges that he was beaten with a slasher (metal blade tool for cutting grass)
and knobkerrie (club) for five hours. While enduring the pain, he alleges that
he was made to count the strokes aloud for the police to hear. Instead of being
charged, the boy was physically assaulted and made to sit in a chair for thirty
minutes before he was sent back home.’
The report
was submitted to the United Human Rights Council
Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review of Swaziland by the Swaziland
Multi-Media Community Network, Swaziland Concerned Church Leaders, Swaziland
Coalition of Concerned Civic Organisations and Constituent Assembly –
Swaziland.
They also reported the case of Phumelela Mkhweli, a
political activist who died after alleged assault by police after they arrested
him.
The report also stated, ‘In April 2011, a 66-year-old
woman was confronted by three police officers regarding the wording on her
t-shirt and headscarf. The police allegedly pulled off her T-shirt, throttled
her, banged her head against the wall, sexually molested her, kicked her and
threw her against a police truck.
‘The US Department of State reported on many
allegations of torture and ill-treatment by police; including beatings and
temporary suffocation using rubber tube tied around the face, nose, and mouth,
or plastic bags over the head, the report stated.
There have been numerous reports of torture by police
and military personnel in Swaziland over the past few years.
In July 2015, Swazi MP Titus Thwala reported that Swaziland soldiers
beat up old ladies so badly they had to be taken to their homes in
wheelbarrows. He said that elderly women were among the local residents who
were regularly beaten by soldiers at informal crossing points between Swaziland
and South Africa. Thwala said the soldiers made people do push ups and other
exercises.
In 2011, a man was
reportedly beaten with guns and tortured for three hours by
soldiers who accused him of showing them disrespect. He was ordered to do press
ups, frog jumps and told to run across a very busy road and was beaten with
guns every time he tried to resist. His crime was that he tried to talk to a
man whose vehicle was being searched by soldiers at Maphiveni.
The incident was one of many examples of soldiers
being out of control in Swaziland. The Army, in effect, has a shoot-to-kill
policy. In May 2011, three
unarmed South African men were shot dead by Swazi soldiers
when they were caught trying to smuggle four cows from Swaziland into the
Republic.
In July 2011, three armed soldiers left a man for dead after
he tried to help a woman they were beating up. And in a separate incident, a
woman was beaten
by two soldiers after she tried to stop them talking to
her sister.
In January 2010 soldiers were warned that their
attacks on civilians amounted to a ‘shoot
to kill’ policy and this was unconstitutional.
There have been many accounts of soldiers killing or
beating up civilians, including a cold-blooded
murder of two women accused of smuggling a car across the
border with South Africa; a man who had five
bullets pumped into his body after being beaten to a pulp; an
attack
on sex workers after three soldiers refused to pay them
for their services; an attack by a bus load of soldiers on a security
guard after he asked them to move their vehicle; and five
drunk soldiers who terrorised two boys, smashing
one of them to a pulp.
See also
SWAZI
ARMY’S IDEA OF PEACE
http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2010/04/swazi-armys-idea-of-peace.html
SWAZI STUDENT LEADER TORTURED
SWAZI STUDENT LEADER TORTURED
KING’S
PAPER SUPPORTS POLICE TORTURE
ROUGH
JUSTICE FOR SEX WORKERS
MORE
POLICE TORTURE IN SWAZILAND
http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/01/more-police-torture-in-swaziland.html
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