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Police brutality

Explanation
The 1980s and 1990s were characterised by ongoing student protests and boycotts and the repressive and brutal response of the police to those engaging in resistance politics. Members of the SAP frequently resorted to firepower as a means of crowd control when clashes broke out between police and protesters in public marches, demonstrations and at funerals. Members of the SAP also frequently used assault and torture as a means of extracting information from detainees or punishing detainees for their alleged role in active community politics such as organised boycotts and protest actions. The Commission received many victims' accounts of police brutality, particularly in public order policing situations, and in the course of detention under emergency regulations.

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... with the education system was the primary focus of conflict. As in the previous period, the youth and particularly the students bore the brunt of police brutality in the course of school boycotts and other protests, as well as being disadvantaged academically by the disruptions. 69 In the ...
Atteridgeville near Pretoria, student leaders were suspended and schools in the townships closed down by the Department of Education. In response to police brutality, students intensified attacks on the homes of those perceived to be sympathetic to the policies of the state. 291 A ...
Homeland police forces 42 As noted above, in the period after 1976, responsibility for policing was transferred, to a greater or lesser degree, to all of the homelands. At independence, the Transkei government appointed its own chief of police, and by 1977 the Transkei Police Force (TPF) ...
... street committee members in Mlungisi Township, Queenstown on 8 December 1985. ‘Comrades’ accused Zamela of being involved with the security police and therefore an informer. In another example, Ms Ntombizodwa Skade [EC1120/96ELN], a street committee member, was assaulted all over her body ...
... of harm to one’s children, spouse or close friends. Almost all the above forms of abuse were represented in the reports received from victims of police brutality in the Orange Free State for the 1983–89 period. 88 Poisoning was increasingly favoured as a method of torture during this ...
... unit which later became Koevoet. 165 On 16 June, Swanepoel was drafted to Soweto. He later said, “Soweto at that time was completely under-policed. They could not control the riots so outsiders were called on to send in task forces.” He collected the first sixty men he could get: By ...
Homeland security forces 106 Both the SAP and the QwaQwa Police were deployed in stations around the small homeland, sometimes undertaking joint operations. The Tseki police station at Witsieshoek was a case in point. Officers from the SAP and the QwaQwa Police allegedly worked together to ...
244 Evidence that an individual was actually a member or supporter of a political organisation did not appear to be of primary concern to police. Mass detentions served rather as acts of generalised intimidation of a constituency perceived to be non-compliant and dangerous to the security of the ...
Civilian right wing, white farmers and the police 190 Among the identifiable right-wing groups active in the Orange Free State during this period was a group known as Toekomsgesprek16, an organisation established in opposition to the NP and Broederbond. The group was responsible for various ...
... population as well as a substantial proportion of the coloured community in Cape Town joining the stay away. There were widespread allegations of police brutality during this siege. In April, an African detective constable, Mr Simon Mofokolo, was battered to death at Nyanga by PAC supporters. ...
... twenty-three years old at the time. The Case of Bongani Cele Lamontville UDF activist Bongani Cele [KZN/NG/031/DN] was constantly harassed by the police in 1987 and went into hiding. Police approached his brother S’khumbuzo [KZN/NNN/094/PM], assaulted him and forced him to point out where ...
Historical overview 152 Conditions in the Orange Free State remained highly charged in the early 1990s. The Commission received reports of ongoing police brutality in the province in relation to public gatherings and demonstrations. Reports of torture and deaths in custody were also received. ...
... the hands of the police. In the Orange Free State, student organisations came to play an important role in representing the interests of victims of police brutality, since only a few of the many hundreds of non-governmental organisations which took root in centres around the country during this ...
MK in Lesotho. 36 The Commission received relatively few reports of violations from the Orange Free State during this period. Most cases concerned police brutality. State and allied groupings Torture in custody 37 The few reports of detention and torture of detainees in the Orange Free State ...
... large groups of IFP hostel-dwellers launched two large-scale attacks on houses and residents in the township. Many allegations were made that the police were reluctant to intervene in the attack. Victims and survivors say that the police never approached them for statements. There were no ...
... to commit sabotage. The state alleged that they had planned to blow up the Kroonstad power station, a military camp, the magistrate’s court, a police station, an office of the Security Branch and other buildings during a general strike of black workers. They were convicted and sentenced to ...
... in the Transkei case and introduced in the Ciskei in order to suppress legal opposition at the time of attainment of self-government status. 96 Police in the homelands (initially SAP and later the Transkei and Ciskei Police) targeted political opponents rather than criminals, as the SAP did ...
... with hindsight, claims credit for the development of the strategy of people’s war and ‘rendering the country ungovernable’, and the security police argue similarly that the ANC was behind the violence which prevailed, there are two important caveats to this interpretation. The first is ...
... about to climb over the border fence at Ramatlabana. It was then that the nightmare began. I was handed over to the Zeerust branch of the security police who interrogated me for about two weeks or so. I can remember very few details except the screaming. I was nineteen years old at the time. The ...
government. Nowhere is this more true than in Natal and KwaZulu. It is for this reason that the IFP is the only homeland-based party and the KwaZulu Police (KZP) the only homeland security structure singled out by the Commission for specific findings. 109 Before focusing on those two entities, ...
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