(From Swazi Media Commentary 7 May 2010 www.swazimedia.blogspot.com)
Can someone in the Swazi police force explain to
us why Siphe
Jele was arrested for wearing a PUDEMO T-shirt?
As we all know by now, Jele was
hauled in by the state police on Monday (1 May 2010) when he was seen at
a Workers’ Day celebration wearing the shirt. One day later he was found
dead in jail.
Today, the Swazi
Observer, the newspaper in effect owned
by King Mswati III,
sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch,
reports that Jele was charged with wearing a white PUDEMO T-shirt under
S19 (1) (a) of the Suppression
of Terrorism Act.
What the newspaper doesn’t tell us
is what S19 (1) (a) actually says.
So here it is: ‘A person who is a
member of a terrorist group commits an offence and shall on conviction,
be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten (10) years.’
Wearing a PUDEMO T-Shirt does not
make you a member of PUDEMO and therefore the police had no reason to
arrest Jele. But after police arrested him for wearing the shirt they
then took him to his home and searched it.
What we all know of course is that
the T-shirt was just an excuse to arrest Jele and beat him up a bit and
for the police to raid his house to see if they could find anything
incriminating against him.
The police claim they found a
PUDEMO membership card at Jele’s house.
In any half-decent democracy the
police wouldn’t be allowed to arrest someone just for wearing a T-shirt.
But in Swaziland’s ‘unique democracy’ anything goes.
Link
http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2010/05/wearing-pudemo-t-shirt-is-no-crime.html
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