WATCH: Journalists witness ‘policeman’ tormenting Hillbrow residents with a sjambok
Journalists from the Mail & Guardian reported on Tuesday about what they had witnessed in the Johannesburg CBD on Monday, amid a nationwide lockdown imposed by President Cyril Ramaphosa to combat the spread of Covid-19.
(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.
The white car drove up and down Hillbrow’s unusually quiet streets. Every few minutes, it would stop, and a plainclothes policeman in a red jacket would get out and chase young men in the streets. He was armed with a sjambok – a whip – and he would use it. Repeatedly. 2/n pic.twitter.com/e23jZ1F8ZQ
— Simon Allison (@simonallison) March 31, 2020
Or this, where Red Jacket chases some young men down the street. It’s not clear what they did wrong. 4/n pic.twitter.com/NpqVuNA6dH
— Simon Allison (@simonallison) March 31, 2020
Eventually we had seen enough. We approached the unmarked white car to speak to the cops inside. Three uniforms and Red Jacket. We were expecting to be brushed off, but the driver happily answered our questions. 6/n
— Simon Allison (@simonallison) March 31, 2020
These were not the only cops in Hillbrow. We saw more than a dozen national police (SAPS) vehicles, and a few city police (JMPD) too. SAPS officers were helping to enforce self-distancing queue discipline – with sjamboks and rubber bullets. 8/n pic.twitter.com/DgiH3kYOXD
— Simon Allison (@simonallison) March 31, 2020
But from our reporting, there is no doubt that police feel emboldened by the lockdown – that normal rules do not apply. These are exceptional circumstances, sure; but once the sjambok is out of the box, will it ever go back in? Here’s our story. 10/10 https://t.co/6lAt9skp1z
— Simon Allison (@simonallison) March 31, 2020
For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.
