JOHANNESBURG, South
Africa
Strict enforcement
of South Africa’s coronavirus lockdown by police and the army has placed the
spotlight on official brutality, a cause of anger among the majority Black
population for decades.
Now a coalition of human rights
organisations called C19 is seeking to document those abuses, hoping the data
gathered will drive reform.
A new website that allows South
Africans to report police brutality launched in April and has drawn input from
across the country, mainly from townships in large cities.
Users go through a series of
questions on the free-to-use site, where they can submit a testimony together
with videos and photos for verification. For those unable to go online there is
a toll-free hotline.
“Documentation of abuses is critical
for accountability, otherwise officials won’t see a reason to change,” said
Thato Masiangoako, a researcher for the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of
South Africa.
“Poor, Black communities experience
abuse from law enforcement more frequently,” Masiangoako told the Thomson
Reuters Foundation.
Police spokesman Vish Naidoo said
individuals were “welcome to play an oversight role on security forces”, but
that “it is senseless going to a website and complaining without opening a
criminal case otherwise nothing will be done about it”.
More than two decades after the end
of white minority rule, South Africa remains one of the most unequal countries
in the world, according to the World Bank, with urban areas starkly divided
along racial lines.
While the lockdown has spotlighted
abuses, this is not a new phenomenon, said Masiangoako, whose organisation uses
litigation and advocacy to support human rights.
More than 42,000 complaints were made
about the police between 2012 and 2019, including rape, killings and torture,
according to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID), the
police watchdog.
But a strict coronavirus lockdown and
a ban on selling alcohol have thrust the issue into the spotlight, with human
rights groups accusing police and the army of using excessive force in
low-income areas.
More than 100 people have reported
beatings, verbal abuse, torture and humiliation to the online violence tracker
since it launched in April, 80% of them from low-income areas.
Rights activists say that is likely
the tip of the iceberg. Masiangoako said the police watchdog was already
investigating at least 10 deaths under lockdown, and that tracker tools could
help those unable to take action against the security forces.
“Our hope is to get a large pool of
data together to highlight behaviour patterns,” said Nathanial Roloff, director
of Safety Lab, which implements projects to mitigate violent crime and helped
build the tracker website.
The site and hotline are monitored by
the coalition members and any urgent issues are flagged to organisations that
can help, Roloff said.
“Attempts to report police in the
past have been met with silence or long processes, rarely with justice,” said
Roloff.
South Africa has seen its version of
the Black Lives Matter protests that began in the United States in May and have
spread across the globe.
In June, protesters gathered in
different South African cities carrying placards with the names of George
Floyd, a Black American man who died in police custody, and Collins Khosa, a
South African who died in a Johannesburg township on April 10.
Khosa died after soldiers entered his
home and beat him with a rifle after seeing a cup of what they said was alcohol
in his yard, according to his lawyer.
“We draw inspiration from BLM movement,” said Masiangoako. “Public officials count on energy dying down, and the focus shifting. But what we are seeing is a sustained and persistent demand for change.”
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