GUMISAI MUTUME, Washington DC | Wednesday
SOUTH Africa’s human rights scorecard has been blemished by the excessive use of force by security forces, political violence, overcrowded prisons and increasing vigilante activities, a United States government report has warned.
The Country Report on Human Rights Practices, issued annually by the US State Department, said South Africa generally respected the human rights of its citizens but decried the killings of civilians by security forces through excessive force and the deaths of an estimated 166 people in politically motivated or extra-judicial violence in the country over the last year.
“Some members of the security forces were responsible for torture, excessive use of force during arrest, and other physical abuse,” says the report, which acknowledges that Pretoria took action to investigate and punish some of those involved.
The section on South Africa – one of 195 countries covered – notes that the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) reported 511 deaths as a result of police action during the last 8 months of last year. Of these, 186 occurred to citizens in custody.
It documents how in April last year, police in Barkley in the Eastern Cape arrested six boys for burglary and dragged two of them behind their car. A 14-year-old boy died as a result. The officers were suspended and charged with murder.
In July, members of the SA Police Service shot and killed and ANC MP Bheki Mkhize while claiming to be searching for weapons in his parents home in Mahlabathini. The ANC has claimed the slaying was politically motivated.
The Braamfontein-based South Africa Institute for Race Relations meanwhile reported 166 politically motivated killings during the first 10 months of last year, the majority of them in KwaZulu-Natal. However, this was a decline from the same period a year earlier when 286 people died.
Factors such as seriously overcrowded prisons, an overburdened judiciary, lengthy delays in trials and prolonged pre-trial detention only serve to compound the human rights problems in the country.
In July, the Department of Correctional Services reported that there were 169_000 prisoners in the country’s facilities, which are only designed to hold 101_000 people.
The reports document the case of a 17-year old boy who died in a Johannesburg prison after being repeatedly raped by adult prisoners. It notes that there are credible reports that youths from juvenile wards are sold to adult prisoners. – African Eye News Services
ZA*NOW:
Grim picture of African human rights February 27, 2000