Another human rights group has criticised the Swaziland
/ eSwatini state for restricting freedom of association and assembly. Swaziland
is ruled by King Mswati III as an absolute monarch.
Human
Rights Watch in a report detailing events during 2018 stated, ‘Restrictions
on freedom of association and assembly continued in 2018. Although Eswatini
signed the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance in January,
the government has not taken steps to ratify and implement the charter.
‘A few days before the September elections, public sector workers,
including teachers and nurses under the umbrella of the Trade Union Congress of
Swaziland (TUCOSWA), embarked on protests over salaries across the
country. Police responded in a heavy-handed manner, beating and injuring
protesters in Manzini.
‘Earlier in June, police injured at least four workers protesting
alleged corruption in government. These incidents occurred despite the new
Police Service Act of 2018 that provides that “the police shall respect and
protect human dignity and human rights,” and that “police officers are
prohibited from inflicting or tolerating any act of torture or cruel, inhuman
or degrading treatment.”’
Human Rights Watch also reported, ‘King Mswati holds supreme executive
power over the parliament and judiciary by virtue of a 1973 state of emergency
decree. The country’s courts have upheld the legality of the decree. This is
contrary to the 2005 constitution, which in accordance with the 2007 African
Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, provides for three separate
organs of government—the executive, legislature, and judiciary. The prime
minister theoretically holds executive authority, but in reality, King Mswati
exercises supreme executive power and also controls the judiciary.
‘The 2005 constitution provides for equality before the law, but also
elevates the king above the law. In 2018, in an apparent exercise of his
absolute executive powers, the king renamed the country without parliamentary
approval or the requisite constitutional change.
‘The Sedition and Subversive Activities Act, which restricts freedom of
expression through criminalizing alleged seditious publications and the use of
alleged seditious words, such as those which “may excite disaffection” against
the king, remained in force in 2018. In February, then-Prime Minister
Barnabas Dlamini said that a newspaper, Swaziland Shopping, was shut
because it criticized the government. Its editor, Zweli Martin Dlamini fled the
country in January after allegedly receiving death threats for implicating King
Mswati in a corruption case.’
Human rights violations in Swaziland have been well
documented. Recently, the United States Department of State in
its annual review of the kingdom, highlighted ‘human rights issues’ across
a wide range of areas which included, ‘restrictions on political participation,
corruption, rape and violence against women linked in part to government
inaction, criminalization of same-sex sexual conduct, although rarely enforced,
and child labor’.
Amnesty
International in a review of Swaziland for 2017 / 2018 stated, ‘The Public
Order Act and the Suppression of Terrorism Act severely limited the rights to
freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.’
It added, The Public Order Act, ‘curtailed the rights
to freedom of assembly and association, imposing far-reaching restrictions on
organizers of public gatherings. The Act also failed to provide mechanisms to
hold law enforcement officials accountable for using excessive force against
protesters or public gatherings.’
Freedom House scored Swaziland 16 out of a possible
100 points in its Freedom in
the World 2019 report. It concluded that Swaziland was ‘not free’.
See also
No
appetite by Swaziland to investigate human rights abuses, corruption: U.S.
report
Swaziland
public services in meltdown and corruption goes unchecked: new report surveys
the kingdom
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