Police in Swaziland are
taking the law into their own hands by whipping women they suspect of stealing
from shops.
It adds to growing evidence
that police in the tiny kingdom (recently
renamed Eswatini by absolute monarch King Mswati III) are out of control.
In the latest case four
women were reportedly beaten with sjamboks [whips] and pipes and scalded with
boiling water. Two of them needed hospital treatment for burns and
blisters.
It happened at Siteki
police station, the Swazi Observer
reported on Friday (14 September 2018).
The newspaper interviewed one victim who admitted they were‘professional shoplifters’ who regularly stole from grocery shops. They would resell the goods.
The newspaper interviewed one victim who admitted they were‘professional shoplifters’ who regularly stole from grocery shops. They would resell the goods.
The women from Mbabane
operate across the kingdom and were caught stealing at a store in Siteki.
One of the women Bonsile Miya, aged 48, was reported by the Observer saying, ‘We were questioned about the theft but we refuted everything. The police bashed us with sjamboks and rubber water pipes.’ She said they were also scalded with boiling water.
One of the women Bonsile Miya, aged 48, was reported by the Observer saying, ‘We were questioned about the theft but we refuted everything. The police bashed us with sjamboks and rubber water pipes.’ She said they were also scalded with boiling water.
The newspaper added they
were released but had to return to the police station later that day. Two of
the women were so badly injured they had to be carried because they could not
walk.
She told the Observer, ‘We have committed an offence,
but we do not deserve to be beaten like that. Being a thief does not mean we do
not have rights.’
The Observer added, ‘Chief Police Information and Communications
Officer, Superintendent Phindile Vilakati said the police were aware of these
kinds of thieves but they usually arrest not beat them up.’
There are numerous reports
of police assaults in Swaziland. In March 2017, A man accused of multiple
murders told a court he was tortured by police
for 11 days to force him to confess. He said he was suffocated with a tube and
assaulted all over his body, resulting in many serious injuries. The alleged
attack was said to have taken place at Lobamba Police Station, the Manzini
Magistrates’ Court was told.
In January 2017, local
media reported police forced a 13-year-old boy to
remove his trousers and flogged him at Ngwenya police station with a sjambok,
to make him confess to stealing a mobile phone.
In September 2016, women were reportedly ambushed by armed police
and ‘brutally attacked’ by police during a strike at the Plantation Forest
Company, near Pigg’s Peak.
In June 2016, a United
Nations review panel looking into human rights in Swaziland was told in a joint
report by four organisations, ‘In Mbabane [the Swazi capital], police tortured
a 15-year-old boy after his mother had reported him for stealing E85.00 (US$6).
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 an 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.
It is not only the regular
police force that assaults people. In June 2018 five
community police officers at Ngoloweni in Sandleni attacked a man described as ‘mentally disturbed’
and beat him close to death. They suspected the 44-year-old man had attempted
to rape a girl aged six.
In April 2018 it was reported that two
community police officers at Malindza stripped a man naked, tied him to a tree
and flogged his bare buttocks with sticks until they bled profusely. They had
accused him of stealing pots from his grandfather’s house.
In March 2018 a court heard that three community policemen from Dvokolwako gang-raped a 17-year-old schoolgirl at knifepoint
and forced her boyfriend to watch. One of them recorded it on his cellphone.
The teenager was in her school uniform while she and her boyfriend walked to a
river after a school athletics competition. The community policemen told
them they were on patrol to make sure none of the pupils committed any offences
during the athletics competition.
In 2014 three Malindza
community police beat to death a mentally challenged man who had escaped from
the National Psychiatric Centre.
In 2011 community police in
Kwaluseni reportedly threatened to murder democracy activist
Musa Ngubeni if he was released on
bail pending trial on explosive offences. Residents accused the community
police in the area of being involved in criminal activities.
See also
Police Must Not Beat
Suspects: Court
Brutal Police Attack
Caught On Video
Police Shoot Up ‘Drink-Driver’s’ Car
https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/police-shoot-up-drink-drivers-car.html
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