AFP reported, ‘Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at about 500 protesters, as well as using water cannon and wielding batons, as demonstrators threw stones at officers.’ Reuters put the number of protestors at 2,000.
It happened in Mbabane, the
kingdom’s capital.
Reuters reported they
marched against poor service delivery, alleged misuse of state pension funds
and a proposed law to charge citizens who marry foreigners.
AFP reported, ‘The
demonstration organised by the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland was over accusations
that millions of dollars have been removed from the national pension fund by
the government of King Mswati III, one of the world’s few absolute monarchs.
‘Parliament instituted the
probe into the alleged scandal, but it was later halted.’
AFP reported trade union
leader Bheki Mamba told protestors, ‘We were marching peacefully until this
unfortunate incident by police.
‘The injured comrades have
been rushed to hospital. We assured the police that we are not confrontational.’
Freedom of speech and
assembly are severely curtailed in Swaziland. Political parties are banned from
taking part in elections and King Mswati chooses the Prime Minister and cabinet
ministers. Advocates for multiparty democracy have been arrested under the Suppression of Terrorism Act.
Meetings on all topics are
routinely banned in Swaziland and the kingdom’s police and security forces have
been criticised by international observers.
In September 2017, police
stopped a pro-democracy meeting taking place, saying they had not given organisers permission to meet.
It happened during a Global Week of Action for democracy in the kingdom. About
100 people reportedly intended to meet at the Mater Dolorosa School (MDS) in Mbabane.
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 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 2013, just before the national
election in Swaziland, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA)
reported that Swaziland was becoming a police and military state. It said things
had become so bad that police were unable to accept that peaceful political and
social dissent was a vital element of a healthy democratic process, and should
not be viewed as a crime.
These complaints were made by OSISA at an African
Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) meeting in The Gambia in April
2013.
OSISA said, ‘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 [in 2013].’
Swaziland is due to hold its next election in September 2018.
Swaziland is due to hold its next election in September 2018.
See also
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