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Thokozani Mtshali
Born in South Africa, Ayanda Moatshe (19) has lived all her life in the country. She holds a valid identity document, speaks four African languages and English, studies engineering at Wits Technikon, and plays on the national softball team. Her mother works at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
But Moatshe has been picked up four times in two weeks by Johannesburg police on suspicion of being an illegal foreigner. Last week police officers threw her in the back of a police van and drove her around town with 20 other suspected illegal immigrants. Her mother had to leave a meeting to rescue her daughter.
This week Moatshe filed affidavits with the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) and the Human Rights Commission (HRC), requesting a probe into police mistreatment and an order to stop police from harassing her.
She filed another complaint with the ICD, asking it to investigate police maltreatment of people whose skin colour is deemed “too African” and the police’s abusive behaviour towards illegal immigrants. Moatshe also filed a charge of “verbal abuse” against police.
HRC representative Jody Kollapen said the HRC is handling many cases similar to Moatshe’s. The daughter of the HRC’s secretary, Ida Motsoeneng, has also had problems with the police because of her skin colour.
“An alarming number of people get arrested due to arbitrary criteria – skin pigmentation, accent or surname,” Kollapen said. “If your surname is Banda, police assume you are Malawian. That’s problematic.”
Moatshe said police had treated her this way three times in the preceding two weeks, and she resented being questioned again: “I have been called an `ikwerekwere’ [slur meaning foreigner], without provocation.”
When police confronted her last Friday, Moatshe said she showed them her identity document. “They said my identity document was fake and anyone can get a bar-coded [ID].”
Moatshe admitted she told police “I’m tired of this shit” before “three of the policemen, one of whom was short and heavily built, grabbed me and threw me into the back of the van”.
Her mother, Pearl Moatshe, came to her rescue after her daughter called her on her cellphone from the back of the police van.
Pearl Moatshe said she found the police van parked at the corner of Kerk and Troye street in Hillbrow. “The police told me they arrested my daughter because she had behaved suspiciously; she spoke in English rather than an African language.”
“I was born in Mmabatho, my home language is Xhosa, and I’m fluent in English, seSotho, seTswana and isiZulu,” Moatse wrote to the HRC. “I’m South African.”
Moatshe, who plays for the South African national softball squad, said she is afraid to walk the streets of Johannesburg. “Why should I be the only citizen in this new South Africa who is required by the authorities to go around with my ID dangling round my neck?”
Police representative Captain Phillip Herholdt said the police are looking at Moatshe’s case and an investigation will begin soon.