Sunday, March 03, 2013

South Africa video exposes rot in police system...

On Tuesday Mido Macia, a 27-year-old citizen of Mozambique, was handcuffed by uniformed policemen to the inside of a police van in Daveyton, a suburb of Johannesburg. The taxi driver was then dragged across the pavement.

Macia later died from head injuries and internal bleeding while in detention.

“They [police officers] killed him. They beat him up so badly in here,” a source who was also detained in the cell told local media.

(...)

Macia’s is not an isolated case. The country’s Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) looks into abuse committed by police officers, including rape, murder, assault and torture. In its 2012 annual report, the IPID listed 932 deaths that occurred in police custody or as a result of police action.

Zweli Mnisi, spokesperson for the Ministry of Police admitted that this figure is "high - and it's a worrying concern for us". But, he added, the figures have decreased by 10 percent. "Are we happy with this? No, we want it to be 100 percent," he told Al Jazeera.

Amnesty International’s southern Africa director, Noel Kututwa, said in a statement that “this appalling incident involving excessive force is the latest in an increasingly disturbing pattern of brutal police conduct in South Africa". Full story...

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