Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa says the police should not use “maximum force” unnecessarily and acknowledges that their heavy-handedness in dealing with civil protests affects their relationships with the people they are meant to protect.
Proper policing of public protests was one of the priorities facing the SAPS this year, Mthethwa told the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) crime summit in Boksburg.
He said the police needed to balance upholding the law with the need to protect human rights. “We cannot use maximum force in a situation requiring minimum force,” Mthethwa said.
He announced that public order policing units needed strengthening to do their job properly.
With about 6 000 sanctioned protests each year, SA has been described as the protest capital of the world.
Demonstrations of people’s discontent have grown exponentially over the past decade, with the Municipal Hotspots Monitor noting that since President Jacob Zuma took office in 2009, the number of protests has multiplied to 10 times the number there were in 2004.
On Tuesday, during a protest in Botriver, in the Western Cape, a 75-year-old man lost a little finger when it was struck by a rubber bullet fired by police. Residents were complaining about poor housing and roads, not enough schools and an inadequate water supply.
Mthethwa said there had been positive feedback on the new policy for public order policing introduced last year.
Mthethwa added that the police had to be able to uphold and enforce the law.
Public order policing units required beefing up, with clear command and control structures to carry out these duties effectively, “so that relations between police and communities are not compromised, but sustained”, the minister said.
He said the SAPS must “constantly relook our approach in the fight against crime”. Under apartheid, the police lacked legitimacy as an “instrument of control” rather than as a means of ensuring the safety of all citizens.
Mthethwa said the SAPS had a “huge challenge” in ensuring “that we create the calibre of cop who is fully enshrined with democratic principles”.
Political Bureau
