Like repressive governments before it, Abiy’s administration seeks to control the narrative by controlling that most democratic of news-dissemination tools: social media
torture
Posted inNews/Politics
Part one: A country with no children
The generation of 1976, which shook the word with its grassroots education and mobilisation, has grown up. This generation’s mass movements can learn from its elders
Posted inNews/Politics
‘Problematising’ farm murders: Why does torture feature in so many cases?
On average 58 people are killed each day in South Africa, a horrendous statistic — but numbers gloss over the qualitative aspects of each homicide — and psychotherapy is needed to address the hidden motives
Posted inEquality, General
Cultural embodiments of the life and death instincts in human beings
Since the 19th century, when the heirs of 17th- and 18th-century British empiricism started thinking of the social implications of the empiricist doctrine, that all we know comes from experience, thinkers like Lord Shaftesbury and his ilk have believed that human society was “perfectible”. After all, if society could be arranged in such a way […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Apartheid, torture and the potential for forgiveness
By Dylan Wray George* is a history teacher. He used to be very high up in the apartheid security police in the Eastern Cape. Zolile* has always been a history teacher. As a young man, he was arrested attempting to flee South Africa to take up arms with Umkhonto weSizwe. George more than likely oversaw […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Will we ever see police officers prosecuted for torture?
The assault with intent to grievous bodily harm case against former SAPS warrant officers David Gunn and Gerrit Januarie was postponed last week until August 18 2014. They were filmed by a member of the public when they brutally assaulted a Nigerian man and stripped him naked in a Cape Town street. Apart from the […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
When will apartheid victims be compensated?
June 26 is the anniversary of the signing of the Freedom Charter. It is also International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. The Freedom Charter is an aspirational document which focuses mainly on freedoms “to” and “of”. One subclause speaks directly to freedom “from”: “The privacy of the house from police raids shall be […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Is SA ready to lead by example?
The inauguration of Advocate Lawrence Mushwana last week as the new chairperson of the International Coordinating Committee of National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (ICC) came at a time when South Africa’s human rights record is at its lowest. Mushwana, who is the chair of South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Torture, it’s cowardly and cruel
The death of Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko this month 35 years ago shocked the world. It was the cruel manner in which he died that highlighted the undesirable effects of torture by law enforcers. Biko was tortured to death while held at Pretoria Central Prison in 1977. Apartheid security policy allegedly tried to get […]