NEWS STATEMENT BY ANC WESTERN CAPE LEADER MARIUS FRANSMAN ON POLICE BRUTALITY

The ANC is outraged at an incident where police together with security officials of the Cape Town City Improvement District (CID) assaulted a defenceless man in Long Street on 6 March during an arrest.

The ANC condemns in the strongest possible terms the wanton brutality by the police officers. The fact that the man who posed no visible threat to anybody was stripped naked by the officers is shocking, and especially as the suspect was hit or kicked in the groin with no apparent reason. Their actions are the cause some individuals give our protectors in blue uniforms a bad name.

The ANC says no police officer is above the law. The vexatious arrest of an onlooker in an office building for the obstruction of the police in executing their duty must also be investigated as a matter of urgency.

The procedures followed seemingly are against police regulations and national instructions as they handed the man to the security officials of the CID while they continued to assault him.

The police should defend our people's dignity and show professionalism in their approach in dealing with people. It does not matter what crime the person committed or whether he is a foreigner, the police's action in arresting the individual should not be undignified and unprofessional with the principles of minimum force.

The whole unseemly incident smacks of race undertones and the attacks continued despite bystanders calling for sanity. It appears as if such actions in the Western Cape are extremely loaded with unnecessary tensions. There seems to be a culture in the province where the arrest of people of colour with brutality is welcomed in some quarters.

Nothing gives those officers the right to act in the way they did. They should immediately be suspended from the police.

Statement issued by Marius Fransman, ANC Western Cape leader, March 7 2014

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