Two community police
officers in Swaziland stripped a man naked, tied him to a tree and flogged his
bare buttocks with sticks until they bled profusely.
It happened at Malindza
after they had accused him of stealing pots from his grandfather’s house. They
were helped by one of his female cousins.
This was not the first time
community police have been in the spotlight for their actions. In 2014 three
Malindza community police beat to death a mentally challenged man who had
escaped from the National Psychiatric Centre.
The Swazi Observer reported on Wednesday (25 April 2018) that Dumisani
Joma, aged 24, had taken a pot from his aunt’s house without consent, following
a family dispute.
The newspaper reported the
community policeman and his cousin later went to find him at a neighbour’s
home.
It reported, ‘They accused
him of stealing pots from his grandfather’s house. Joma said without being
given any moment to explain his side of the story, the men and woman grabbed
and forced him out of the homestead.
‘Along the way, he was tied
with ropes and further stripped naked in full view of members of the public.
‘“They then took me home
where I was tied against a tree before taking turns to assault me with sticks,”
he said. Joma said the beating continued until he bled profusely on his
buttocks.’
Sikelela Dlamini, aged 60,, Mbhodze Lukhele,
aged 64, and Thantazile Mtshali, aged 21, were later each sentenced at Swazi
National Court to seven months in a correctional facility with an option to pay
a E700 (US$56) fine.
The community police
operate in rural Swaziland and are supervised by traditional chiefs who are
local representatives of King Mswati III, Swaziland’s absolute monarch. They
have the authority to arrest suspects concerning minor offenses for trial by an
inner council within the chiefdom. For serious offenses suspects should be
handed over to the official police for further investigations.
There are concerns that
some community police officers in Swaziland overstep their authority.
In March
2018 a court heard that three community policemen 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 2013 community
police in Mvutshini banished two men from their community in Swaziland
because they were gay. The men, one aged 18 and the other 21, had moved from
the Lubombo region to stay with the aunt of one of them.
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.
The Weekend
Observer newspaper reported at the time
that some community police officers had been discovered to be involved in
cattle rustling and others with stolen exhibits confiscated from thugs in the
area. They were entrusted with the responsibility of taking the exhibits to the
police station, but they instead kept some for personal use, a resident told
the newspaper. In a third instance, another community policeman defrauded a
resident of an undisclosed sum of money using the name of a police officer from
Sigodvweni.
See also
POLICE GANG-RAPE SCHOOLGIRL
COMMUNITY
POLICE BANISH GAY MEN
KWALUSENI
POLICE ‘ARE CRIMINALS’
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