What type of draconian police state is this?

CYRIL FARR writes:

Nolwazi Dhlamini’s front page exposé in Kempton Express detailing the medieval-style chaining of a woman to a chair in Kempton Park Police Station shocked my family to the core.

What type of a draconian police state are we sinking to when a young lady, who had committed the “horrific crime” of exceeding the speed limit by 36km/h, can be so humiliated by jackboot cops?

Of course we expect strong custodial measures when police arrest dangerous homicidal criminals who are a danger to society, but it is Gestapo-type over-reaction to shackle or handcuff people who have allegedly committed minor traffic misdemeanours that won’t even appear on a criminal record.

On the following Monday charges against the woman were withdrawn. She was clearly not a flight risk as the police had impounded her vehicle and had possession of her ID document.

If the police did not have a holding cell available, why not just allow the woman to sit and await formalities in the charge office, instead of humiliating her and trampling on her basic human rights of being presumed innocent until proven guilty?

It’s yet another gross overreaction by the SAPS and metro cops, which is unfortunately rapidly becoming the norm and causing a huge lack of respect for police officers, who need all the support they can get from the public in the war against rampant crime.

In another shocking article, the disgusting confiscation of an indigent homeless man’s meagre possessions and blankets by heartless Ekurhuleni Metro Police. Beggars belief in a 21st century modern democracy and the article brought my wife and daughter to tears.

Such disgusting police excesses emphasise how religious compassion and Mandela’s noble legacy of Ubuntu have been ruthlessly trampled on in recent years. I hope none of those unfeeling police officers who were involved in the chaining incident or the confiscation of the homeless man’s sole possessions, has to ever see their mother, wife or daughter treated in such a disgusting fashion, chained up like a rabid dog.

Shame on all of them. There but for the grace of God go I.