Police stopped a pro-democracy meeting taking place in
Swaziland. They said they had not given organisers permission to meet.
It happened on Friday (8 September 2017) during a
Global Week of Action for democracy in the kingdom ruled by absolute monarch
King Mswati III.
About 100 people reportedly intended to meet at the
Mater Dolorosa School (MDS) in the kingdom’s capital, Mbabane. The Observer on Saturday, a newspaper in
effect owned by King Mswati, reported that ‘proscribed pro-democracy groups’
led by the Swaziland United Democratic Front tried to meet.
In Swaziland groups
advocating for multi-party democracy are banned under the Suppression of
Terrorism Act.
The Observer
reported a police spokesperson saying the meeting was unlawful. Superintendent
Khulani Mamba told the newspaper the organisers had not sought permission to
meet from the police and therefore it was illegal.
Meetings on all topics are routinely banned in
Swaziland. In 2013,the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) reported
that Swaziland police and state security forces had shown ‘increasingly
violent and abusive behaviour’ that was leading to the ‘militarization’ of the
kingdom.
OSISA
told the African Commission on Human
and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) meeting in The Gambia, ‘There are also reliable
reports of a general militarization of the country through the deployment of
the Swazi army, police and correctional services to clamp down on any peaceful
protest action by labour or civil society organisations ahead of the country’s
undemocratic elections.’
Again in 2013, after police broke up a meeting to discuss the pending
election, the meeting’s joint
organisers, the Swaziland United Democratic Front (SUDF) and
the Swaziland Democracy Campaign (SDC) said Swaziland no longer had a national
police service, but instead had ‘a private militia with no other purpose but to
serve the unjust, dictatorial, unSwazi and ungodly, semi-feudal royal
Tinkhundla system of misrule’.
In April 2015, a planned rally to mark the anniversary of the royal
decree that turned Swaziland from a democracy to a kingdom ruled
by an autocratic monarch was abandoned
amid fears that police would attack participants.
In February of that year In February and March, large numbers of police
disbanded meetings of the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA), injuring
at least one union leader.
In 2014, police
illegally abducted prodemocracy leaders and drove them up to 30
kilometres away, and dumped them to prevent them taking part in a meeting
calling for freedom in the kingdom. Police staged roadblocks on all major roads leading to Swaziland’s main
commercial city, Manzini, where protests were to be held. They also physically
blocked halls to prevent meetings taking place.
Earlier in the day police had announced on state radio that meetings
would not be allowed to take place.
In 2012,
four days of public protest were planned by trade unions and other
prodemocracy organisations. They were brutally suppressed by police and state
forces and had to be abandoned.
In 2011, a group
using Facebook, called for an uprising to depose the King. State forces took
this call seriously and many prodemocracy leaders were arrested. Police and
security forces prevented people from travelling into towns and cities to take
part in demonstrations. Again, the protests were abandoned.
See also
SWAZI
POLICE NOW ‘A PRIVATE MILITIA’
SWAZILAND
‘BECOMING MILITARY STATE’
POLICE
THREAT TO DEMOCRATIC STATE
https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/police-threat-to-democracy-debate.html
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