Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/torture/Swaziland.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Swaziland. Some of these links may lead to websites
that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false. No
attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on
this page and others to see which aspects of Torture by Authorities are of
particular interest to you. You might
be interested in exploring the moral justification for inflicting pain or
inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment in order to obtain critical
information that may save countless lives, or to elicit a confession for a
criminal act, or to punish someone to teach him a lesson outside of the
courtroom. Perhaps your paper might
focus on some of the methods of torture, like fear, extreme temperatures,
starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, suffocation, or immersion in freezing
water. On the other hand, you might
choose to write about the people acting in an official capacity who
perpetrate such cruelty. There is a
lot to the subject of Torture by Authorities.
Scan other countries as well as this one. Draw comparisons between activity in
adjacent countries and/or regions.
Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources
that are available on-line. ***
ARCHIVES *** 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Swaziland U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/eswatini/
[accessed 9 August
2021] TORTURE AND OTHER
CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT In February, Bongani Kunene of Moyeni
alleged that during an interrogation police beat him and placed a plastic bag
over his head. During the year there were scattered reports of police
brutality towards those alleged to have violated COVID lockdowns. In one
pending case, a police officer was arrested and charged with attempted murder
for shooting a teenager in the arm after having fired his weapon to disperse
a group of teens who were contravening COVID regulations by playing soccer during
the partial lockdown. There were isolated
reports throughout the country of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment by
“community police”–untrained, volunteer security personnel who exist outside the
country’s formal legal structures and are empowered by rural communities to
act as vigilantes, patrolling against rural crimes such as cattle rustling.
In November 2019 a group of community police severely beat five suspected
thieves on their buttocks and paraded them naked through the street as
punishment. ARREST PROCEDURES
AND TREATMENT OF DETAINEES Pretrial Detention:
CHRPAI stated lengthy pretrial detention was common, with the majority of
pretrial detainees incarcerated due to shortages of judges, prosecutors, and
courtrooms; a weak case management and coordination system; and a lack of
access to legal representation. As of December the 845 pretrial detainees was
approximately 21 percent of the total prison and detainee population. A 2018
survey of detainees by CHRPAI concluded that 245 of them had been awaiting or
undergoing trial for 12 or more months. Freedom House
Country Report 2018 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/eswatini/freedom-world/2018 [accessed 18 May
2020] F3. IS THERE
PROTECTION FROM THE ILLEGITIMATE USE OF PHYSICAL FORCE AND FREEDOM FROM WAR
AND INSURGENCIES? Physical abuse of suspects
and inmates by law enforcement officials is an ongoing problem, and
investigations into such abuse lack independence and transparency. Some
prisons also suffer from overcrowding and other harsh conditions. Rangers
tasked with combating game poachers have been accused of improper use of
lethal force, and several deaths were reported during 2017, but the law
grants rangers immunity from prosecution for such killings. Police
Torture Suspect to Death' Swazi Media
Commentary (Gaborone), 13 June 2015 allafrica.com/stories/201506130256.html [accessed 21 June
2015] www.times.co.sz/news/103204-suspect-tortured-killed-in-manzini-police-station.html [accessed 2 January
2018] Swaziland police
killed a suspect by suffocating him during questioning, a newspaper in the
kingdom has reported. The killing
happened on Friday (12 June 2015) at the Manzini police station. The Swazi News, an
independent newspaper in the kingdom, where media censorship is the norm,
reported that the man 'was suffocated using the now infamous technique known
as "tubing".' The newspaper
reported, 'The police took the man who worked as a barber to assist them in
an investigation at about 8:30am yesterday [Friday] and a few hours later, he
was reported dead. The police officers, as they led the suspect away, had
warned his work mates that he would not return. The newspaper said
the man was being questioned for being in possession of a stolen CD writer. Police 'Torture
Political Activists' Swazi Media
Commentary (Gaborone), 22 April 2013 allafrica.com/stories/201304230100.html [accessed 24 April
2013] www.africanseer.com/news/274219-swaziland-police-torture-political-activists.html [accessed 2 January
2018] Two political
activists arrested at an election rally in Swaziland have been tortured by
police, the kingdom's Communist Party says. In a statement, the
Communist Party of Swaziland said the two men were taken by a special police squad
to police HQ in Mbabane, the kingdom's capital. The statement said,
'Information is coming in that the two comrades are undergoing an intensified
torture session at the Police headquarters in Mbabane , this is a violation of
the normal procedure recognized internationally that when a suspect is
apprehended he /she is kept in a police station and charged within 48 working
hours.' The statement said
the police HQ had 'special interrogation chambers which are well equipped for
torturing suspects'. The police have
kept the two men in isolation and not allowed them to speak to lawyers. More Police Torture
in Swaziland All Africa, 31
January 2013 allafrica.com/stories/201301311570.html [accessed 1 February
2013] swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/01/more-police-torture-in-swaziland.html [accessed 2 January
2018] The woman told
local media in Swaziland she was in bed at 11pm when police arrived at her
home demanding she tell them the whereabouts of her husband who was wanted on
criminal charges. 'I explained to
them that I did not know where he was and this seemed to irk them and they
got violent,' the woman said. The Swazi Observer
newspaper reported, 'They then dragged her out of the house and threw her
inside the kombi. She said she was not given a chance to dress up and she
found herself leaving from the house with only a kanga around her waist and
was barefooted.' She told the
Observer, 'I cried for mercy to no avail. I was pushed, kicked, slapped and
shoved around while being threatened with death if I did not co-operate. 'They later tied me
against a tree and told me to say my last prayers. I even wet myself due to
fear as the officers took turns torturing me.' The newspaper
reported, 'She said among them was a female police officers who kicked her in
her private parts and other sensitive parts of her body. She was also
"showered" with a bucket full of cold water, which made her shiver
more and she felt like vomiting.' Policing
and Human Rights -- Assessing southern African countries’ compliance with the
SARPCCO Code of Conduct for Police Officials Edited by Amanda
Dissel & Cheryl Frank, African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum APCOF,
2012 ISBN:
978-1-920489-81-6 [accessed 25 March
2014] [SWAZILAND] --
ARTICLE 4: TORTURE AND CRUEL, INHUMAN AND DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT No police official shall, under any circumstances,
inflict, instigate, or tolerate any act of torture and other cruel, inhuman
or degrading treatment or punishment of any person. Allegations of
torture and degrading treatment committed by the police continue to appear in
the local press. In Mbabane, police were alleged to have tortured a
15-year-old boy after his mother had reported him for stealing SZL85. The boy
alleges that he was beaten with a slasher (tool for cutting grass) and a
knobkerrie (club) for five hours. While enduring this pain, he was told that
instead of crying, he must count the strokes aloud for the police to hear. At
some point he was threatened with a gun. Instead of being charged, the boy
was physically assaulted and made to sit in a chair for thirty minutes before
he was sent back home. Amnesty
International reported on the death of a political activist, Phumelela
Mkhweli, who died after apparent assaults by the police after they arrested
him. The US Department of State reported on many allegations of torture and
ill-treatment by police during 2011, including ‘beatings and temporary
suffocation, using a rubber tube tied around the face, nose, and mouth, or
plastic bags over the head’. No
convictions or punishment of police officers for these offences was reported
during the year. The United Nations’
Country Team (UNCT) working on the UPR process noted that while the
Constitution provided protection against inhuman and degrading treatment, there
were allegations of the police using interrogation methods in contravention
of this provision with some of them resulting in death. It also noted that
there has been no successful case holding police responsible for brutality. AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL From an old article -- URL not available Article was
published sometime prior to 2015 TORTURE AND OTHER
ILL-TREATMENT
- Torture and other ill-treatment remained a concern, with a High Court judge
in April calling for a commission of inquiry into repeated allegations by
accused in criminal trials that they had been subjected to torture, which
included beatings and suffocation. Deaths under suspicious circumstances and
the failure of the authorities to ensure independent investigation and
accountability continued to cause concern. Police and members of the military
were implicated in the reported incidents. On 12 March
43-year-old Lucky Montero was kicked and beaten in the head and body by
soldiers at a border checkpoint. He died 12 days later in Mbabane Government
Hospital from medical complications arising from his injuries. Search … AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL For more
articles:: Search Amnesty
International’s website www.amnesty.org/en/search/?q=eswatini+torture&ref=&year=&lang=en&adv=1&sort=relevance [accessed 14 January 2019] Scroll
Down ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Freedom House
Country Report - Political Rights: 7 Civil Liberties: 5 Status: Not Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/swaziland [accessed 1 February
2013] LONG
URL ç 2009 Country Reports begin on Page 21 [accessed 13 May
2020] According to the U.S.
State Department, there were numerous incidents of police torture, beatings,
and suspicious deaths in custody in 2008.Security forces generally operate
with impunity. Inthe last four months of2008, the
army was deployed to man checkpoints throughout the country due to unrest,
and new army camps were set up in parts of northern Swaziland believed to be
sympathetic to PUDEMO. Prisons are overcrowded, and inmates are subject to
torture, beatings, rape, and a lack of sanitation. While the new constitution
prohibits torture, the ban is not enforceable in court. Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61595.htm [accessed 1 February
2013] 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61595.htm [accessed 5 July
2019] TORTURE
AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT – The law does not
specifically prohibit such practices, although under the Prisons Act
correctional facility officers may be prosecuted if they engage in such
procedures; however, government officials employed them. Security forces used
torture during interrogation and abused their authority by assaulting
citizens and using excessive force in carrying out their duties. There were credible
reports that police beat criminal suspects and occasionally used the
"tube" style of interrogation, in which police suffocate a suspect
by using a rubber tube around a suspect's face and mouth. According to media
reports, police also used the "Kentucky" method of interrogation,
in which the arms and legs of a suspect are tied together and then the person
is beaten. The government took no action against police or soldiers accused
of abuse. On May 10, a 16‑year‑old
student was admitted to the hospital in critical condition after police
detained and interrogated him for stealing a cell phone. He said that police
squeezed his testicles during the interrogation. Majaha
Dlamini sued a USDF member for a June 6 attack in
which he sustained serious injuries on his testicles and open wounds on the
back and hip. Stephen Thwala said that police
suffocated him by the tube style of interrogation after his August 17 arrest
for assaulting a policeman. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
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ARTICLES. Cite this
webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, "Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance
& Other Ill Treatment in the early years of the 21st Century-
Swaziland", http://gvnet.com/torture/Swaziland.htm, [accessed
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