(Photo by Michele Spatari / AFP)
The president has repeatedly enjoined both members of the police and the army not to use force and violence against the population, but the situation on the ground has often been starkly different.
Officers have already humiliated and harmed the public by making them do physical punishment, have fired rubber bullets at crowds and whipped them, and have allegedly already extrajudicially killed someone in Ekurhuleni.
Ramaphosa told the country in a televised address on Monday evening: “We have made it clear that the task of our security personnel is to support, reassure and comfort our people, and to ensure peace and order is maintained.
“They know that they must act within the law at all times and that they must not cause harm to any of our people.”
However, that message appears not to have reached Hillbrow and several other areas.
Simon Allison of the M&G reported that they repeatedly witnessed an aleged plainclothes policeman sjambokking people who dared to emerge from their homes on to the street. He reportedly chased them too for no readily apparent reason.
You can read the M&G’s full report here.
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