Police Brutality

Mopheme/The Survivor (Maseru)
EDITORIAL
November 12, 2003
Posted to the web November 12, 2003
Maseru
Is killing by the use of live ammunition, other weapons and force, the only way
the Lesotho police can disperse demonstrators? The brutality displayed by our
police, especially against the factory women, is very embarrassing, not only to
government, but to the whole nation.
Our human rights record is surely going to the deep, with police brutality
increasing by day. This time around, we should not let things to just disappear
or be talked in hush-hush tones.
The government must find resources to institute an urgent commission of inquiry
to investigate what actually led to the shooting of the factory workers, and
also to find out why live ammunition had to be used to disperse a protest march
that was still with the permit conditions.
It is true that in some cases, especially around the Maseru industrial, some
reports of stone throwing from the workers were made, but there isn't anything
that says it continued until police had to use some kind of force.
We need, as a nation, to be assured that in a democratic setting, people's
rights to mount peaceful protests are protected. Why should we at have a
Constitution and other legal instruments that give such rights, if the police,
or the government, is going to act above the law.
Incidences of this nature have happened before and because factory women are
not given much consideration, their pleas have always been shifted aside. If
Prime Minister Mosisili cannot act this time around, then there is definitely
no other time to protect the factory workers from exercising their rights and
from seeking better working conditions that will make them more productive.

   

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